Even with a guide I couldn’t manage to roll up Cowbear. That’s the one thing that kept me from getting the PS3 platinum trophy. Good thing I don’t care about trophies, right?
1 Like
For the EDF heads:
I have never played an EDF. What’s a good one to play? I’d prefer one that runs well on Steam Deck (native PC or emulated) but have no other requirements.
Spin Rhythm XD update: As I get deeper into the XD difficulty, I’ve noticed my left hand start to form a claw, as if my index finger is perched high above the left bumper. My speculation is that this is in response to the game punishing you severely for hitting that button when you shouldn’t. I didn’t choose for this to happen and I don’t think I can stop doing it.
2 Likes
Uh oh, I’m playing Hades again. And when I say again, I mean from a fresh file for the fourth time, again. Maybe I really needed a game that just melts time and turns it into good brain chemicals. I wonder why?! No but, for real, I love Hades big time. I was delighted to learn Hades II is still coming to the dusty old switch, so I have one more good excuse to not worry about getting a Swiitch or a steam deck yet.
9 Likes
For Hades, what’s your
?
7 Likes
Finally got around to playing RoboCop Rogue City, it’s pretty neat. It’s as double-A / mid-budget a game as you can get, at times it feels like a heavily modded Fallout 4 rather than a standalone game. But all that can’t distract from how charming the game is.
RoboCop feels like a goddamn dump truck, like he stomps and clomps around the place, I love how clunky it feels just to trot around.
Gameplay is a lot of ‘go here, talk to them, shoot him’ kind of quests. The best ones are when you’re doing police investigation, asking people questions and searching for clues. As you might expect, it’s got plenty of references to the films, you can tell these guys love RoboCop.
And, delightfully, it’s short and sweet. Run time is like 12 - 15 hours, you can beat it over a weekend. 
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Christopher Walken? More like Christopher Dancin’! I think my favorite is probably the bow with the aspect of Chiron. The homing special on that does crazy damage with almost any boon.
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I feel like the bow is the worst one to use without upgrades, but instantly becomes the best with certain hammer options.
Yes, I agree. Vanilla bow is rough to use.
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That was my favorite as well!
I love the super hangover build on the Chiron Bow where you aim to get the Aphrodite/Dio, Ares/Dio, Artemis/Dio duo boons and just poison everything with the Dio special
The Zeus/Poseidon duo w/ the Poseidon special is also really fun on Chiron Bow
2 Likes
I haven’t played Hades in a while so I can’t really comment on the boons, but I’m so basic my favorite is just the Zagreus Blade. I like them all a lot but I feel like if my goal is speed (which it usually is at this point) there’s no beating old reliable
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I really liked the secret fists because I like it when things go too fast. Poseidon sword was also fun because I like explosions.
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Maybe I’m due for a replay, now that I think about it
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Exactly! Any boon that benefits from stacking is nuts with Chiron. The Demeter boon that does an extra 100 damage with 10 stacks of chill will pop off every other special. Or with Artemis you’re nearly guaranteed critical damage every shot.
The sword used to be the hardest for me to use until I realized the aspect of Poseidon that knocks bloodstones out of enemies with special works perfect with the Artemis boom that adds damage when your bloodstones are dislodged. Love seeing those big numbers.
2 Likes
I’m at the finish line of everything I wanted to do in Balatro which was unlocking all the jokers and gold staking every deck. I have two decks left to beat, then I’m probably going to drop the game forever.
Overall, it’s a neat game to mess around with during your morning coffee. It’s not very deep, and once you get to the more difficult stakes, the amount of viable builds shrinks so severely that you don’t really even have a lot of decisions that you need to make. To put it bluntly; Gold Stake Balatro is not fun and very much feels like video poker. I am not a gambler because I don’t enjoy it at all. The hardest difficulties of Balatro feel like your agency is taken away and you’re more or less forced into getting enough money so you can spin the wheel enough times until you hit the jackpot.
The lower difficulties are fun; you can try silly joker combos, play around, and make some fun and silly decks that will get you through the 8 base antes. But gold stake is all searching for the handful of good jokers and that sorta of sucks.
Up until the end, I’ve had fun with it. Balatro is very approachable and is great at providing dopamine hits at the lower difficulties. It is not, however, a forever game and runs out of steam as soon as you try to add any forms of challenge to it.
4 Likes
I just started playing Blue Prince:
- For listeners of The Jeff Gerstmann Podcast. I immediately found the stump and gate he mentioned. It’s even dumber than he suggests
- The second thing I did after I started playing was search the Steam forums for “Invert” and sure enough there were many posts from people who played previous demos begging for an invert y-axis option. (to be clear: Invert Y-Axis is in the game, but control options are terrible. Which is how I knew it had been an issue.)
- The game seems fine so far.
1 Like
I’ve been playing the Mega Drive ‘Liberty or Death’ and am just having an absolute blast. In a very silly way it reminds me of Aerobiz Supersonic but instead of managing planes and slots it’s about the US Revolutionary War
It’s KOEI basically making a Revolutionary War Romance of the Three Kingdoms and I’m very very buckled in for it
4 Likes
do I recall correctly that Benedict Arnold has some pretty high stats ?
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I played Batman: Arkham Knight.
Thoughts:
This game is “adult” in the gamer way, with everything being dark and gritty. The people are dirty and bloody and gross. Poison Ivy wears just a shirt and what can generously be described as a thong. Lots of murder porn violence. I really wish they went more in the TAS direction with artstyle and tone rather than taking all the wrong lessons from the Nolan films.
The Batmobile might be the best vehicle I’ve ever used. It steers perfectly, even at high speed, it can switch on the fly to “battle mode” where you can basically move it like a cursor, and it has tons of weapons and stuff.
The game looks really good on Steam Deck, and holds a solid 40fps at high/max settings.
The open world is okay, but the main story is miles above the side stuff in terms of quality. The narrative was better than I though, though ultimately comic-booky schlock. The Joker was actually funny at times. Hamill’s performance is pretty great.
Upsettingly, the game won’t let me get to the credits by just beating the main questline. After finishing it, I’m told I have to finish 7 side quest lines (of my choice) before I can access the ending. Screw that. Open worlds are great for playing around in when optional, but don’t make that stuff mandatory when I’m ready to move on. I won’t be rolling credits on this game out of spite.
9 Likes
Is the game designed to run at 40fps or is this a hardware power issue?
2 Likes