What games are you playing 2: The revenge

Finished EDF 4.1

Now playing Outward.

I'm fairly early on in the game, but have about ten hours in it so far. I've done a fair bit, but have really only just started.

I'm liking it, but it lacks some quality of life stuff that open world RPGs tend to have these days. That's part of the game though.

It's sort of Morrowind meets Soulsborne. It has Souls style combat.

There's also no saving. No save scumming. When you quit the game you start exactly where you left off when you boot it up again. So if you screw up you have to live with it or restart. I haven't had to restart yet. Despite how that sounds, the game is pretty forgiving. Dying doesn't penalize you much. Haven't seen any complaints about getting stuck anywhere either, as you'll eventually starve or dehydrate and end up back at a safe point even if you do get stuck. You can't jump, which helps with that as well I think.

It also has two player co-op, and splitscreen play.

It's a hardcore survival RPG with only one difficulty. You have to eat and drink, manage temperature similar to Breath of the Wild, repair your gear [which doesn't use resources, but must be done when resting], and you can only join one of three factions per playthrough. There are lots of debuffs to manage and stamina is also something you need to manage in a fight.

It's also a good idea to specialize. There are a good variety of weapon types and skills, but skills and abilities are expensive. I've yet to be drowning in money.

The three factions thing is actually a pro for the game, as each one has a unique questline as I understand it. You can't 100% the game in a single playthrough. You might go to some of the same locations, but are doing different things depending on which faction you choose and what kind of build you want to play.

You will want to visit each faction hub in any playthrough though, as they all have unique skills and items. You can still use the shops and trainers, but can't do faction quests or buy homes in a city controlled by a faction you aren't a part of.

I'm currently doing the starting town faction, but there's an order of Paladins, and a "free city" faction as well that you can join.

There's no leveling up, gear and training is how you make yourself more powerful which can be bought from certain NPCs. You can't just dump money to continually improve your stats, once you learn something from a trainer you can't learn it again. This means avoiding fights can be more beneficial than attacking everything you come across. You also don't want to pick up every item you come across, but will want to be gathering stuff to help you survive and sell.

Crafting, alchemy, and cooking are essential for survival. Not necessarily all three, but it's a good idea. Food decays, so you can't hoard it. There are potions and such as well, and they won't decay. Life Potions are fairly easy to make and are instant heal, but not so much that you'll end up with a huge amount unless you do a ton of grinding.

Debuffs are also not usually something you can instantly cure. Even after you take something that will cure it, it takes time for a status effect to go away. Healing items reduce the duration. There are a few items that can instantly cure something, but they are fairly rare so far. Even most healing items heal over time and not instantly.

Money also has weight, making your home base stash extra important. It can quickly limit your carry ability.

Magic is super useful in the game. Having the right spells can really cut down on the amount of junk you have to carry around. It's also something you have to work for. Basic spells are rather weak, but more powerful spells usually require linking spells together. Certain spells grant a special status that you can use to cast more powerful spells. You can't just buy magic and cast it right away, you have to unlock spells and get prerequisite skills in some cases.

Going and getting magic was the first thing I did. I actually got lucky and stumbled across the place I needed to go. It's kind of hard to miss where it is, but the entrance is easily missed. There's a big mountain in the middle of the first area's map, but the entrance isn't at the peak.

Pure mage is a legitimate playstyle in this game, but you can't start as a mage. You can also go pure melee, ranged, stealth, or mix and match a bit and do spellsword. It's pretty open, but getting there takes a bit as you have to travel around to gain skills and abilities.

The game does not pause for inventory management. It can be paused though, but you have to select pause from the main menu and can't do anything while the game is paused. You have quick slots though, but only eight. They can be used for weapons, spells, or skills. [There's a mod that adds more, but I found it unnecessary.]

It's also dark at night and in caves. It's hard to see in some places and it takes a bit before you get better light sources. Light also makes you easier for enemies to spot.

Mana regen is also a bit odd. Sleeping actually reduces your ability to regenerate mana. However, using a few spells restores your ability to regenerate mana. So you can sleep, and then cast a few weak spells to get your mana regen back to normal.

Inventory management is a big part of the game, and it needs mods.

The most important mods are one that adds player location to the map, and one that links your stash chests. I also recommend one that improves your carry capacity a little. Even the biggest backpack in the game isn't quite big enough. I have it mostly to mitigate the money weight issue so I can carry around a couple thousand without being weighted down.

A neat mechanic is that you can drop your backpack to fight and improve your movement. You actually have two carry inventories, one in your backpack, and another smaller inventory called "pockets" that you keep on you. Bigger backpacks reduce your ability to dodge.

You also don't lose items when you "die". "Death" is a bit odd, as you always "survive" when you get beat. You'll wake up either as a prisoner, in a town, or at the entrance to a dungeon or area with your stuff nearby. You do need to retrieve your gear, but it will usually be nearby. Expect to die a lot. Usually the first few times you fail you'll just end up nearby to where you were and need to heal up or rest. If you keep failing, it will eventually dump you back in the town in the area you're in with all your stuff, including anything you obtained before you got your ass handed to you.

In fact, this can be used to your advantage at times. Dying until you end up kicked back into town can be used as a "fast travel" of sorts seeing as the game drops your stuff nearby to where you end up. You do need to remember to pick up your stuff and heal up or rest though. You can also use it to get to a town right away when you enter a new area. Bandits have a chance of taking you to a bandit camp as a prisoner, so it's best to use creature mobs to do that with.

Enemy respawns are also pretty forgiving. Most of the time, if you head right back, enemies you've killed will still be dead. They will even still be damaged if you hurt them and head back immediately usually. This is true even if you end up back in town and make your way back into a dungeon. New enemies will spawn in after a bit though. Items also seem to remain where they are dropped for an extremely long time, possibly permanently.

I would have liked a Morrowind style fast travel system, but traveling around and surviving the trip from one place to another is part of the game. You can get gear that helps with this a lot by increasing your movement speed by a lot, making getting around and avoiding mobs easier. I have heard rumors that the devs are considering adding a caravan system that works similar to how Kingdom Come did it. Travel between cities you've visited and have a chance of getting attacked along the way. It isn't in the game now though, and may never happen.

There's a lot of open space without much in it in the game, but it is nice to look at usually. Not super impressive graphically, but the art direction is good. There are also only a few buildings you can enter in most towns. Dungeons are fairly large though. Lots of hidden stuff and it doesn't hold your hand and explain where to go and what to do, much like Morrowind.

There's also a Legacy system that I think is basically NG+. Not sure how that works exactly though.

Don't sell anything that says "strange" in the item description. They are junk on their own, but can be upgraded to very powerful items later on. If you find something like that, store it in your stash.

If you're into difficult survival RPGs check this out when it's on sale. I don't know that it's worth full price yet, but still recommend it if you're a fan of this style of game. Especially if the co-op element sounds appealing.

The biggest drawback is the lack of fast travel and a lot of empty space, but enemies that are there are tough enough and you're squishy enough even later in the game that the few there are provide enough challenge that not having a ton of stuff constantly dogging you is a good thing. There are creatures and places even in the starting area it's best to just avoid until later in the game. Even trash mobs can take you out with good gear if you're not careful.
 
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Earth Defense Force 5.

It's a reboot of the franchise, unlike the last game, which was a direct sequel.

Doing a solo Inferno run again.

Fixes most of the problems I had with EDF 4.1. It's a much more polished game, but still retains that B-movie sensibility.

It has a sprint button, which is really nice considering how often you have to run after that one enemy that manages to end up on the opposite side of a map. This was my biggest gripe with the last game.

EDF 5 has a better engine, much better lighting, weapons are more accurate without the crazy spread, enemies have visible damage, you now pick up drops at a wider range using an equippable special item, some of the more annoying attacks do less damage, and assorted other quality of life tweaks make it a much better game.

It still has that weird "obviously translated a bit too literally" issue with the dialogue, but it sounds more professionally done. On the one hand that's good, on the other the camp of the last game was part of the charm. There's still enough of it that it works though. It's kind like of going from 80s anime to early 90s anime.

I did cheat to unlock Inferno difficulty, which also unlocked all the levels. I'm playing in order with no skipping unless I finish the previous level legitimately. No other cheats though. I've got decent weapons as the game hands them out like candy early on, and playing on Inferno nets you nicer stuff sooner.

I did notice it's getting harder faster than EDF 4.1. Not a huge deal seeing what I had to survive in the last 15 levels of the last game. That one level towards the end that throws five of the wasp queens at you at once comes to mind. I died about thirty times doing that one, had to be very careful to only aggro one of them at a time because they fill the screen with stingers.

It's also interesting that you don't start as a member of EDF in 5. You don't actually join up until several levels in.

I did end up grinding for 1000 armor, but it didn't take that long since the third level throws easy to kill hoards with infinite spawn points at you that drop it frequently. It did take a bit longer because armor drops for every class, and each class has its own pool. Once you have a decent explosive weapon getting through it isn't difficult. I'll probably end up doing that a few times once I hit a wall later in the game as I did with EDF 4.1. I ended up finishing the game with about 10000 armor. It gets easier to grind for armor as you progress, as the game throws progressively bigger hordes at you.

At any rate, if this sort of game is your thing, I highly recommend picking it up if you haven't already.
 
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EDF 5 is gloriously hard. Inferno is way more difficult than it was in 4.1.

I hate enemies that grab and throw you the most. The red ants and tadpoles both do it. There is a black ant type that will as well, but they seem to do it less often and don't show up that much. These types of enemies toss and ragdoll you, which can send you towards enemies you don't want to aggro yet, or place you right in front of another grabby enemy. I hate them more than anything else in the entire game.

I would have had a much harder time doing a legit Inferno solo run if not for the DLC mission packs.

They give the most powerful gear in the game, but are also the hardest levels to beat. The second DLC pack especially as it throws tons of enemies at you. It's great for farming stuff once you have the gear and armor to survive.

Fortunately, they hand out endgame loot as well on the easier levels, which aren't too bad. They also drop armor like candy, making it much easier to grind for than doing it in the normal game.

I've got a level 103 shotgun now that shoots sticky grenades and has a very wide spread. It will cover a hallway easily, takes out those irritating red flying drones with ease because the shots stick to it, and destroys armored, silver, and gold enemies. The range isn't bad either for a shotgun, it will take out flying enemies if they are within range to attack you.

There's another shotgun at 106, but it isn't nearly as good.

There's also a sniper rifle that does 10k damage. I'm using that as my alternate right now, it's good for taking down distant spawn points and aliens that are sniping me. The shotgun handles crowd control extremely well.

I have to be careful how I aggro stuff and actually use the idiot NPCs to survive. Even with 10k+ armor.

If I screw up I basically get so covered in attacks that I literally can't see and just die. This is especially true of I'm dealing with more than one boss monster. Taking out spawn points is priority one.

I also have to position myself well and make good use of damage reduction armor.

Inferno isn't meant for soloing, but it's possible. Stupid hard, but possible. The game doesn't really expect you to go beyond hard on your own. So, it's not normally as hard as I'm making it. I also cheated to unlock Inferno right away, and that means I had to grind more for armor, weapons, and gear than someone else normally would.

You could brute force it. As I understand it, the cap for armor is somewhere around 10,000,000. It would take an absurd amount of time to grind for that much, but you could pretty much grind until you can faceroll through inferno if you wanted.

This is probably the best EDF game to date. They've ironed out a lot of the issues the other games had and it just seems more polished. It's also a good point for people new to the franchise to jump in, as its a soft reboot and starts fresh. You don't need to have played any of the others to follow what is going on in this one.
 
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Yakuza Kiwami.

It's neat how they added so much stuff from Yakuza 0. There's a bunch of returning characters from that game in a bunch of the new sidequests. It makes it feel more consistent and ties things together pretty well.

Overall I'm liking it as much as I did the original version. The modern updates feel good and do add a lot. This is the version to play if you've not gotten into the series before.

Though I'd recommend playing Yakuza 0 before this one because of all the callbacks to it. Yakuza 0 is still the better of the two, with a lot more content, but Kiwami is still really good and well worth playing if you crave more after Yakuza 0.

It has that uniquely Japanese balance of serious crime drama and silly, just less sillyness than Yakuza 0. Kiryu is a great protagonist as he can handle both sides of that.

The time jump early on actually works really well given the plot of the game has Kiryu returning after a decade away. I feel a lot more like I'm rediscovering the place just like he is after having played Yakuza 0 first. It's still very much Yakuza 1 as well and didn't lose any of the over the top epicness.

Probably gonna do Kiwami 2 next.
 
Picked up Red Dead Redemption 2 on Saturday. Haven't done any of the story stuff, but I have picked up some rare weapons. I also have lost the Civil War knife.
 
No Man's Sky Beyond drops tomorrow.

The biggest deal about that is VR support, which I'll definitely be checking out.
 

da_fox2279

California Crackpot
No Man's Sky Beyond drops tomorrow.

The biggest deal about that is VR support, which I'll definitely be checking out.
I'm somewhat confused - is that a sequel or an expansion pack? I've not been clear on that. Seems rather foolish to make a sequel, given the complaints about the first one.
 

Zetas

Lurking upon the deep
I'm somewhat confused - is that a sequel or an expansion pack? I've not been clear on that. Seems rather foolish to make a sequel, given the complaints about the first one.
I'd call Beyond an expansion, as calling it just an update would be doing it a disservice. They released the patch notes earlier if you want to take a look.
 

da_fox2279

California Crackpot
I see, thanks.
 
So if I buy a gun or outfit from the Rockstar Social Club in RDR2 do I have to wait until I unlock it in game before I can use it?
 
Spent some time with the Beyond update.

It needs more work before VR is worked out.

It functions, but there are a lot of small annoyances with how things work in VR. Definitely playable if you've already got it, but not worth jumping in if you don't just yet. It has the potential to make it a must by for VR users with a bit of patching though.

Hello Games actually is pretty good about listening to feed back, so there's a good possibility it will reach that point.

The biggest gripe is that VR on PC requires you to use motion controls for driving or flying. It's floaty and imprecise, and the position of some of the controls isn't very good. I'm hoping they add gamepad support for vehicles, or at least the ability to bind vehicle controls to a stick or touchpad.

Getting around on foot and exploring feels really good though.

Going from OpenGL to Vulkan is nice. It runs better on lesser hardware as a result. This is probably the biggest thing for people playing on a monitor.

This is also probably what makes the game possible to run in VR.

I haven't seen a lot of the additional content yet as I started a new game to play in VR.

The language learning system has been streamlined, as is the upgrade system. You just buy buff upgrade modules from vendors now rather than blueprints. Not entirely sure how it all works yet as I've only just left the starting system.

A lot of NPCs also now wander around, which is nice.

I seriously lucked out and started out in a system with a very habitable planet.

Weirdly, there is a cooking mechanic, but you don't need to eat. You basically make things and then sell them or take them to an NPC for other rewards.

I'm guessing a "needs" system is planned for a hardcore survival mode in a later update. There's really no other reason to implement a food system otherwise.
 

Zetas

Lurking upon the deep
From what i've read in the patch notes ,haven't unlocked the food prep station yet, better things to spend my unlocks on, eating prepared food gives your exosuit buffs. And lucky on getting a habitable planet, my first system was a single frozen planet with a desert moon (other way around would make wayyy more sense).
 

seitora

Well-Known Member
About four hours into Dies Irae.

The plot sort of makes sense, but the game spoonfeeds you so slowly I'm still completely lost as to a lot of the backgroud.
 

Antimatter

Well-Known Member
Playing Prey since I got it on sale.

Holy crap this is good so far. IT's the system shock followup we always wanted but dind't really get in bioshock.
 
Playing Prey since I got it on sale.

Holy crap this is good so far. IT's the system shock followup we always wanted but dind't really get in bioshock.
It's a neat game. It reminded me more of Deus Ex than System Shock though.

Some of the late game enemies are a bit spongey though, and some of them are kind of cheap and irritating towards the end. The first two thirds of the game are better, but it never stops being fun.

It is less horror and more action after a bit though. There's nothing you can't kill and once you can make your own ammo and have a surplus of junk to break down resource management stops being a thing you need to worry about.

The sci-fi horror theme and setting is definitely like System Shock, but the actual gameplay is more Deus Ex, where you have upgrades that open up new paths and multiple ways to solve problems along with the morality system of sorts. You can also easily make yourself overpowered if you use the right build.

Combat and the way you gather junk and items is very similar to the original Bioshock and the powers are similar to the plasmid system.

It's definitely the bastard child of all three of those games.
 

Antimatter

Well-Known Member
Picked up Black Desert on sale. Not sure when i'll have the chance to play it but mainly wanted it to try out that legendary character creator and see if the graphics in game are as good as they say.

Also got Everybody's Golf VR. Need to give it a shot soon.
 

da_fox2279

California Crackpot
Picked up Hyper Light Drifter since Epic was giving it away for free. Fun game, loving the play through so far.
 
Still doing NMS Beyond, not playing for extended periods much though.

I really like a lot of the anti-grind stuff they did with Beyond. It really does make things less tedious. Keeping the mining laser hot without overheat it also makes mining more than just point and shoot.

VR is cool and has improved a bit performance wise. Flying the ship still kind of sucks as you're stuck with motion controls. It works well enough for getting around, but sucks in combat. They really need to let players bind flight controls to a joystick or something.

Also gave Ion Fury a try. It is well worth the price of admission. I beat it in about seven hours, but it has a lot of replayability, tons of secrets, and a lot of interactivity.

It is also old school hard, and is probably roughly equivalent to Shadow Warrior difficulty wise. It's harder than Duke, but not as hard as Blood.

It is impossibly pretty for a Build Engine game. There's no way they could have pulled off what it does in the 90s. Still, it does manage to keep that feel of nostalgia but with a modern coat of polish on it.

It doesn't have level transition screens. There are levels, but you don't ever see a tally screen. It just says "loading" for a second and you're in the next level. It does inform you that there's stuff left to find in an area.

It's more Shadow Warrior than Duke Nukem in regard to how combat works, with a bit of Blood sprinkled in.

The weapons are okay, but nothing great. They do the job though and are mostly satisfying. I would have liked a couple more.

I do like the alt fire for your starting pistol. It's a tag and execute thing that auto aims.

The bow has a "kill every motherfucker in the room" or "fuck that guy in particular" alt fire which is probably the best thing in the game. It's your long range weapon as well, similar to a rifle in most other games.

The grenades have a homing feature and are intended to be used like dynamite in Blood. You toss them into rooms before you go in to deal with hit scan enemies. This is probably where it is most similar to Blood actually, in that you'll be using your grenades a lot in a similar manner to dynamite in Blood.

There is a grenade launcher as an alt fire for your shotgun, but it's a bit underpowered. It doesn't really have much of a damage radius. It's useful, but not really for clearing out enemy crowds. It's more to deal with single enemies and damage sponges.

In fact, the only weapon that really has any kind of splash damage are the hockey puck looking mine things, and they are sparse in the game and their range is thrown, or they can be placed on walls and act as wall mines.

There really isn't a big damage splash damage weapon like a rocket launcher in the game. The grenade launcher is the closest thing, and it's pretty weak for that kind of use. There is no BFG type room clearing gun.

That's both good and bad I suppose. On the one hand a weapon like that could be a bit of a crutch, and not having something like that rewards more skill based and strategic gameplay. It's really a minor thing, but something I noticed.

After running into a certain pair of enemy types, I did't use the pistol mark and kill alt fire for anything else. It's the drones and little spider things. They are a pain to deal with any other way.

Well, the spider things like to appear in vent shafts and crawl spaces, where you can use the melee weapon to deal with them easily. Any time they are not in an enclosed space, that alt fire is pretty much the best way to deal with them, so I ended up not using it for anything else.

Aside from that, it's build engine goodness. Definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of the old school Duke 3D, Shadow Warrior, or Blood games. Especially the latter two.
 
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Control.

Full disclosure, this is a one year Epic exclusive. I don't personally care, but I know that's a deal breaker for some here.

Only about twenty minutes in.

It's great.

It looks really great for starters. Very well designed setting so far, and the character models look nice. The atmosphere is really impressive so far.

I have no idea what's going on, it's government conspiracy X-files nonsense. Kind of like Men in Black if was done by Kojima, but I'm not sure if what is going on is alien, supernatural, or both. Seems to be that last one.

Nothing so far has made much sense, but I wouldn't say it's been confusing to follow the plot so far. I do have some grasp of what is going on, it's just so weird and out there in a strangely Noir conspiracy sense.

The shooting is fun and the setting is interesting though, I'm interested in figuring out what's happening, but don't actually expect to be able to make a lot of sense of it in the end.

It's very cinematic in presentation, the acting so far has been great. The lead protagonist has some sort of psychic powers and a connection to "something". She's looking for her brother and talks to herself and this "other". She was involved with some thus far unexplained incident with the buereau when she was younger and decided to go looking for them. The game starts when she finds their office seventeen years later, you start in the lobby and the game goes on from there.

I've only got twenty minutes of play though, but if the game keeps up what it's doing now, it's a definite recommendation.

EDIT: It seems like a 3D Metroidvania style game. There is also a fast travel system. Also, there are live action elements as well. Photos and in game videos using live action footage. There's also an upgrade system that I haven't been able to do much with yet because I'm still early in the game, and items that provide buffs.

I'm into this so far.
 
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Further into Control now. I'm super into this.

Environments are very destructible. Not just objects, but walls and such can be destroyed and/or take damage. It has a nice physics engine to go with that with lots of way to break things.

It is indeed Metroidvania style progression. It actually kind of reminds me of The Suffering so far with the action horror mix going on, just with less Doom and more X-files. Prey is another game I'd compare this favorably to.

The shooting controls are tight and the powers are cool.

The first power you get is telekenisis, you can literally just rip chunks out of the walls and throw them at enemies. There isn't any energy limit bar or cooldown either. There is, but I didn't notice it until I got an upgrade for it that said it was there, which I haven't bothered installing. I've been using it extremely liberally, and have yet to run out of energy, it fills up really fast. The TK also works both ways, if you grab something behind an enemy it will hit them when it is coming towards you and hurt them.

It's action horror mixed with sci-fi conspiracy with a great sense of atmosphere.

This shit is my jam.
 
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Antimatter

Well-Known Member
Pre-ordered the FF8 remaster and Monster Hunter Iceborne.

Can't wait for Tuesday to arrive.

Also laughing my butt off over the crazyness around changing Siren to not show the infamous golden pubes and slightly adjusting Rinoas top.
 

Karnath

Well-Known Member
Downloaded the FF8 Remaster on PS4, I think I might platinum this one the trophy list isn't that bad.
 

Antimatter

Well-Known Member
Watching someone play it on twitch. IT has a few issues but seems like a fun remaster over all.

I'm going to try for a total game breaking run this go round myself.
 

Karnath

Well-Known Member
Watching someone play it on twitch. IT has a few issues but seems like a fun remaster over all.

I'm going to try for a total game breaking run this go round myself.
Actually had the music start skipping which was kinda weird.
 
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