@“captain”#p128181 did you ever check out one of those WS remake ports?
I picked up Terra Nil on sale for PC. I have tried a few different City Builders themed around ecosystems before and they never quite do it for me, and this one also missed the mark for me. It is designed in a way that you‘re always kind of fighting with yourself for how you allocate resources, where new upgrades are constantly unlocked so it kind of requires you to constantly erase what you’ve made in order to build something new on top of it. I don‘t mind that loop coming hours into a game, but this happens in the first 10 minutes. Everything is limited by a small map size, forcing you to build ’tall‘ very quickly. But I guess that’s literally the name of the game. The game is a little puzzle box constantly folding over itself. Not the worst game design but it‘s not what I seek in a city builder. I get that it’s trying to make a political statement about the finite nature of the planet or whatever, but the systems would benefit by giving you a bigger plot of land to work with.
The resource constraints also put you under pressure to make decisions quite slowly and not at scale. Like instead of placing 5 windmills before placing the plant dispensers, the game really wants you to set up one windmill at a time and dispensers then move on to the second one, etc. If I'm geo-engineering, want to plan ahead so I can minmax the area of effectiveness. Instead you're going to be inefficient by design and buildings can't be deleted, only 'recycled' for other purposes. The idea is cute but I'm not a big fan.
Maybe I should just say screw the environment and get Factorio instead. Capitalism is more fun than environmentalism, sorry.
@“deadbeat”#p128123 It‘s up to you, there’s a spoiler later that might affect if you want to play with all the characters before moving on. I'd say if you are in the mood for more, go for it. If you feel ready to move on you can always come back and it will feel like a new experience.
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@“yeso”#p128149 People playing Ys games: don’t skip Oath In Felghana. It’s one of the best of the series and also one of the best games
Truth. Skip Wanderers from Ys and just play this one. Then return to Wanderers as a historian... and play the Turbo Graphics version and not SNES
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@“captain”#p128181 how much the Pixel Remaster version feels like a new game
A new game, or... simulating what it was like to play it with a Game Genie and GameFAQs at your fingertips. I just wish the in-game maps looked more like [this](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/522595-final-fantasy/map/2630-terra-cavern-basement-1-3-map).
I need to get on that Quake 2.
@“sdate”#p128141 Curious what you disliked about the Quake 1 remaster? As someone who never played the original version I thought it was one of the best remastered games I’ve ever played. (I’ve even gotten used to playing it on Switch with gyro aiming - the 2P co-op horde mode is some gnarly fun.)
Love that Nightdive and Id went even further with this one, tossing in production material galleries (complete with playable E3 demos!!), excerpts from the original instruction manual, even more UI and input customization, the N64 game available from the main menu instead of the weird add-on system, and apparently even new animations and content within the existing levels. The one issue I have with both games’ treatment is - and I _just_ discovered this booting up _Quake II_ after playing _Quake_ for over a year - that “accessibility settings” turned on by default eviscerate the original menus and text font, turning it into generic white text on black windows. Having this as an option is fine, but why set it on by default?? Turns out I was missing a crucial component of the first game’s aesthetic whole all this time without even realizing it.
As for the game itself…
https://twitter.com/seer_2501/status/1690022921626890241?s=20
It’s a little disappointing that so much love has gone into a game that is in many respects a step down from its predecessor… but it’s still “merely” _good_, as opposed to “epochal”. I do like the greater fluidity of movement, the incorporation of gibs into the actual game mechanics(!!), and the coherent but not overbearing narrative contextualization of the levels into meta-setpieces, levels within levels, etc. I don’t so much like the narrower, more linear spaces, or the change in aesthetics from Lovecraftian gothic dread with Trent Reznor industrial grinding to more indistinct Heinlein-y space war stuff with wailing guitars and toylike guns.
Anyway I hope Bethesda is drumming up hype for a full reboot in the spirit of _Wolfenstein_ and _Doom_. Those reboots wisely took what were originally very similar games in drastically different directions reflecting the diverse subsequent evolutionary paths of the FPS: _Wolfenstein_ as a narrative-driven campaign shooter with stealth elements, _Doom_ as a pure action high-speed run-and-gunner. Ideally I’d love for a new _Quake_ to split the difference and attempt a survival horror or “immersive sim”-style game with aesthetics inspired by the first one. Maybe get Arkane to develop? Or the guys behind _Scorn_?
The Quake II re-release, and because I bought an older version of it last year through Microsoft when it was on sale for 79¢ on my computer, it was just available and ready to be downloaded on my Xbox.
Well I realized why I prefer console games over PC… I‘m having trouble launching Baldur’s Gate 3 out of nowhere. First crashing during gameplay even with quite compromised graphical settings. Now can't verify game files. 
Frustrating to try to troubleshoot after coming home from a night out when you just want to chill.
Instead I picked Bayonetta 3, which I started replaying last night, and I'm having a real bad time with it. Chapter 3 and 4 specifically are grim, slow, and boring. There's too much fog of death in this game, and the game feels like it's pushing you into it constantly while you're platforming. I can't really get my head around where I'm supposed to go in the spider sections, and timing your dash when the 'weather' effects blow you into the fog. But all of that pales in comparison to the lumbering kaiju battles. It's just not fun imo. I kinda respect that they are trying a lot of new things, like the elevator action sections or having yo-yo bayonetta but it feels very weird to be switching to this stuff after a lot of unsatisfying main gameplay sections.
I beat Gungage the other night cause I wanted a game that I could just blast through in one sitting, while enjoying some nice PS1 graphics. There are lots of fun little weird moments in a mostly breezy 3rd person shooter. All of the character designs were cool, especially the monster designs, and I loved the environments, even the ones that were eerily vacant. The final boss was super spongy and tedious compared to the rest of the game, though. If you're playing on duckstation like me one of the built-in cheats is “Kill final boss in one hit” which I may or may not have used heheh.
If anyone has some other short breezy PS1 recommendations I'd love to hear em :-)
@“frog”#p128317 Dino Crisis 2 is a short dino blaster that can be completed in an evening. A lot of fun and looks great.
Ghost in the Shell is an evening shooter. Definitely needs an emulator for save states though.
I played through Jumping Flash in one sitting recently and that felt like a very fun, very complete experience in 3-4 hours (with save states).
And if you like a slightly not great game that has a weird atmosphere, Resident Evil Survivor is short, easy and strange.
@“yeso”#p128149 Correct. I’m always surprised when there’s any debate about which is the best Ys game. That is a problem we have solved, case closed.
After playing through the Doom wad My House, I then went back and played a bunch of the original Doom, which obviously rules. So now I went back restarted Doom Eternal. I basically 100% the single player content at launch, but haven‘t picked it up since. This game rules and I’m very firmly in the camp that it is a faithful extension of the core Doom concepts. The original game merely implied the weapon/ammo optimization minigame, but there‘s a clear through line. This game’s also really really hard, especially because it requires you to constantly rip & tear your way back from 0 health 0 ammo in every fight. Dynamic, bombastic, and just fun.
i haven‘t been playing a lot lately (bunch of new life stuff has been going on lately), but i wanna say that crash team rumble (yes, the multiplayer crash bandicoot game that shouldn’t exist) is a blast to play and i wish it had been free to play, because i am afraid it is going to be completely dead sooner rather than later
@“connrrr”#p128205 I never did—I didn't consider any version besides NES (original aesthetic package) or Pixel Remaster (optional original music, new music, cheats, the map, French language option). WonderSwan is interesting in its own right but would have required more effort than I was willing to put in this time
@"Tradegood"#p128225 I don't know having not played the original with a Game Genie and a GameFAQs guide, but having those kinds of things available as bespoke in-game toggles would be substantially different, I think! Toggling random battles with the press of a button is really an incredible change to the experience
@“sdate”#p128431 Wow, sounds like you are much deeper in the Quake Hole than me hahaha. I impulse bought the remaster on Switch when it came out because I modestly enjoy Doom, I like MachineGames (who did the new expansions) and I wanted to hear Trent Reznor sounds coming out of my TV during a video game. Took me a while to get over the fact that it’s very obviously designed for a mouse/keyboard setup but once I actually got the hang of gyro aiming (and realized how much better it is than just the traditional dual analog setup - I need every console shooter to incorporate this now) and playing around quicksaves I started really enjoying it. It’s all the things I like about Doom done better, with fewer of the things I dislike, and a delicious atmosphere to boot. (All the particularities and choices of different mods, performance rates, etc. remind me why I prefer to be a console baby - no, I can’t defend this position beyond “it’s easier and I want my leisure activity to be easy”.)
I knew about _Quake II_ starting out as a different IP and yeah, between the completely different setting and the different approach to level design you can really tell. (I can see why there wouldn’t be many fan-created levels either - the campaign is a pretty strong departure from prior Id games’ approach of just presenting a series of self-contained high concept levels in sequence.) It’s already kind of funny that the name _Quake_ doesn’t really make sense in the final game because it was originally attached to a completely different game about a guy with a giant hammer, but in the sequel even the logo with the nail in it no longer makes sense.
Maybe I’m not cynical enough but I don’t think a _Quake_ reboot in the style I’m imagining is that wild or implausible. It’s a huge, beloved IP which means it’ll have a certain degree of guaranteed traction no matter what direction it takes, the last two Id property reboots were successes, and the larger Bethesda umbrella is no stranger to putting out games in this general ballpark: _Dishonored_, _Prey_, _The Evil Within_. It would also be a way to meaningfully distinguish the brand from _Doom_ and _Wolfenstein_! I guess the biggest caveat is that _Quake_ turning into the Id game people associate with multiplayer means a slower, more atmospheric single-player-focused reimagining could alienate people who want their fragfests. But also, like… that’s a pretty crowded market at this point, and people are still playing _Quake Champions_ aren’t they? That’s the modern multiplayer _Quake_ experience, at this point, while the single-player is nonexistent.
I‘ve been trying to get back to my Baldur’s Gate 3 save file, in which I have invested about 20 hours… but whenever I load my game I get this error 222. This blows, because this was quickly becoming one of my favorite games of the year and the idea of losing so much progress is really deflating. Everything‘s on the cloud and I’ve contacted support, but I can't open any of my saves or autosaves.
[URL=https://i.imgur.com/Ft3AC7w.png]
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/Ft3AC7w.png[/IMG][/URL]
So I'm pushing through my Bayonetta 3 save instead. I think I have reached the 'acceptance' stage that this game just has a totally different design philosophy that results in a worse game. They _decided_ to remove danger and urgency during platforming sections, they decided to make exploration very formulaic and repeat the same patterns for hiding things, they decided to make the whole game a boss rush with the same enemies over and over, they decided to balance around spamming summons, they decided to favor spectacle over framerate or being able to see your character in many of the fights, they decided we needed to have very slow rock paper scissors battles for whatever reason...
And the story just sucks, I know it falls apart more later but man, it's just bad. The whole metaverse multiverse bullshit is super over-saturated and uninteresting to begin with. I think the ONLY way to play this game is to believe that it is "Bayonetta 3's" game, and that it doesn't impact the other two preceding games. Because otherwise, it means the earlier games aren't really about anything any more. Those games were self contained and had good consistent worlds and this one just decided to make it fuzzy for some reason.
This game is emblematic of a game having too long of a development cycle with an overcooked story and overdesigned gameplay. They got carried away with making everything about the level design 'special' that nothing feels meaningful. They wanted the story to raise the stakes and involve mystery but it all hinges on changes that are too much too soon and not well integrated. Sorry to be so negative, but I think Bayonetta 3 is just a bad game.
@“sdate”#p128473 Lucky for me I am pathologically bad at competitive shooters and thus only get these games for campaign and/or couch co-op… thus I demand cool campaign Quake just like the other Id shootmans got
@“antillese”#59 Would you be able to use your mod powers to move these posts:
@"sdate"#p128141
@"Chopemon"#p128147
@"sdate"#p128171
@"2501"#p128277
@"sdate"#p128431
@"2501"#p128466
@"sdate"#p128473
@"2501"#p128513
over to the [Quake thread](https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/661-the-quake-thread-slipspace-shenanigans)? I admit the request is entirely selfish, I just want to be able to refer back to all of sdate's links without finding post #1,579 in The Thread In Which We Discuss The Videogames We Are Playing in 2023
(sorry everyone for all the notifications)
@“sdate”#p128527 Nothing unsmart about your posts, it is what you're playing in the year 2023 after all!
The Steam achievements for Ys VI and Oath in Felghana are bad and poorly drawn. No idea what‘s going on there. I was fighting a boss in Oath and got the achievement “Consult a FAQ already” because I died ten times. Hate that. I don’t know if I'm just bad at Ys, but taking time to master a boss fight is part of the experience that I want.
Everyone that's said that Ys Origins is their favourite is my new best bud! I could play those games over and over again. One of my favourite things is that as the setting is in a tower there are so few opportunities to even have the chance to get lost - you pretty much just go up! Absolutely rad music too.
I started playing Hitman (no subtitle) / World of Assassination last night. I bought Hitman 3 with the stuff from the first two games thrown in and have been a little intimidated with how much stuff there is as well as generally being a little averse to stealth games (I understand that it's not necessarily a stealth game).
I'm having a super fun time with it and I can feel its claws grabbing onto me. I was aware of a few of the scripted comedy kills in the game like the plane ejector seat on at the start of the first game and the tone of the game and its playfulness has piqued Ms LeFish's interest. For a long time I felt a sense of "it'll never be as good as everyone says it is" before I played the game but in a very rare instance, it really is as good as people say, and it is very welcome in my house.