Video Game Chat Thread - Pre-Alpha Experimental Version

[Polyboros2]

Mortismal's 100% review dropped. He gives it a buy with out heaping a ton of praise. I really was interested in his opinion, as my favorite game of last year was Octopath Traveler II and he rated it as his second favorite, while most reviewerd barely even mention it.
His criticisms were:

• He addresses the localization with out getting political, says it make the characters feel like modern day teenagers than people in a fantasy setting, but also that it's only really bothering in the early parts of the game.
• So many characters leads to none of them getting to stand out, even the main party comes across a little weak
• The rune system doesn't lend to a diversity of builds for characters, just the right choice or wrong ones.
• It's easy to catch up on levels for party members not being actively used, but not in terms of gear, leading to having a few focused party members rather than freely swapping between the 71 combat heroes.
• A lot of what I assume are Kickstarter addon features are weak, like cooking, card game, and legion battles. The beyblade minigame was fun.

I was really interested in this game after I finished Unicorn Overlord. I think I still will play it, but when really determines on if they clean up the Switch port. If that version gets running well I'll grab it once it is, but if it's always underwhelming than I'll just wait for it to be on deep discount on Steam.

 

[Captain Chromosome]

I finally got around to playing Dead Island 2, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit more than I thought I would. I liked DI1 and Dying Light (haven't played 2), so it's nice to see the improvements.
The environments are pretty well done and I'm not as put-off by the vulgar dialogue or the Bri'sh coalburner celebrity as I though I'd be. The maps, especially Monarch Studios, feel genuine. The NPCs haven't reached the point of feeling overbearing yet (with one exception) either, so that's a huge victory.
Weapon modding and blocking hits is fun.

There are some major flaws that have soured my experience, though. If you see a locked room, don't bother thinking it's a puzzle since it's tied to some quest later on. In the first mansion you enter, there's a locked room that you assume you can get in, but you actually need to progress towards the end of the game with a side character to unlock it. It's really counterintuitive for a game that wants you to scavenge and look around.
Fuses are awful. Essentially keys to get into special areas like locked garages or doors with good loot, but I don't like the implementation of "yeah just get a couple from the merchant and keep doing that forever".
The biggest gripe I have with the game is the counterattacks. After blocking or dodging (depending on your skill card or character) at the correct time, you'll stagger a zombie and be able to interact with it for a QTE that does a solid chunk of damage or outright kills it if it's low enough. The issue is how heavily the game seems to play around the fact that while you're in that QTE, which is easily a couple seconds or longer depending on the weapon, you're completely immune to damage. It's like an easier version of backstab or stagger dodges in Elden Ring.

Still working through the game, but it's endearing in its own way. I wish the gore was a little less realistic, though. While I can live out my fantasies of brutally murdering homeless niggers in Santa Monica with a tire iron, seeing a quarter of their skull get chunked off and eyes dangling from sockets is a bit much. I have become the prude.

 

[Happy Camper]

and to think, i saw the trespasser video from this channel. it was a pretty good video. didnt need to see the person tho

I had a similar experience. Just put on one of the videos about old Amiga games and the mini documentary on Hugo as white noise to get my esoteric Euro retro proto-boomer fix as white noise. Pretty OK content!
Then you look through the video list and see the many shots from a web cam and the red flags start popping off. Though I honestly wouldn't know if the person is a loon or not (let's be fair for once), I've just been conditioned to see certain phenotypes as being likely to have a lot of baggage I may not be entirely willing to play the odds on.

Some people should just embrace the fact that they have a face for radio and manage their online presence accordingly.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

Haven't gotten into Lancer yet, but I found a game on Itch.io called Lancer Tactics which looked like a sick mix of classic Fire Emblem and Advance Wars. I saw it had a Kickstarter so I went to check on the project status...
TROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONS. By principle for now fueling the ego of the mentally ill and descent further into said mental illness. On a related note, what is some good mecha games you can recommend that aren't well known.

 

[GhastlyGhost]

Haven't gotten into Lancer yet, but I found a game on Itch.io called Lancer Tactics which looked like a sick mix of classic Fire Emblem and Advance Wars. I saw it had a Kickstarter so I went to check on the project status...
TROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONS. By principle for now fueling the ego of the mentally ill and descent further into said mental illness. On a related note, what is some good mecha games you can recommend that aren't well known.

If you're into run and gun platformers, Gigantic Army is amazing,

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Haven't gotten into Lancer yet, but I found a game on Itch.io called Lancer Tactics which looked like a sick mix of classic Fire Emblem and Advance Wars. I saw it had a Kickstarter so I went to check on the project status...
TROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONS. By principle for now fueling the ego of the mentally ill and descent further into said mental illness. On a related note, what is some good mecha games you can recommend that aren't well known.

The first Front Mission is pretty good, maybe the translation is finished by now.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

If you're into run and gun platformers, Gigantic Army is amazing,

Only recently heard of it, 2D sidescroller mech game that looks like it's straight from the early 2000s flash (I mostly mean before 2010 but close enough)? Hell yeah. Shame I only recently heard of this.

The first Front Mission is pretty good, maybe the translation is finished by now.

God damn love Front Mission. I don't play remakes since I believe "old" shit should stay as it is. Which translation are you referring too specifically?

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

God damn love Front Mission. I don't play remakes since I believe "old" shit should stay as it is. Which translation are you referring too specifically?

The one that is like 90% complete because that was the only one available when I played it :/

 

[Judge Dredd]

I finally got around to playing Dead Island 2, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit more than I thought I would. I liked DI1 and Dying Light (haven't played 2), so it's nice to see the improvements.

Odd questions, but how are the builds, how is the story, and are there any hot characters?

Steller Blade is taking all the outrage atm, but I also wonder if someone like the sword using Asian character from the first game would be allowed to make an appearance these days.

As for builds, I remember the characters offered fun play styles that were wildly different from each other.

And of course the first DI sold on that trailer then nothing like that happens in the game, while Dying Light was a mess with it's story, so does DI2 do it better?

Haven't gotten into Lancer yet, but I found a game on Itch.io called Lancer Tactics which looked like a sick mix of classic Fire Emblem and Advance Wars. I saw it had a Kickstarter so I went to check on the project status...
TROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONS.

It gets way worse than that. The RPG is set in a communist utopia that also doesn't make any sense.

It could be worse. Could be Super Meatpunks Forever.

On a related note, what is some good mecha games you can recommend that aren't well known.

It depends what you consider "not well known" and how many mechs you want.

If you want a TRPG, Super Robot Wars is a game I've been chipping away at for years on the Vita. I don't know how the sequel is, but it looks similar.

I can also recommend Mechanicus. It doesn't have mechs, but there is a giant robot you can unlock. Xcom Enemy Within has mechs you can spec into, sort of. They are great fun and it doesn't get enough of a mention.

An odd one. Templar Battleforce is one I've not played. It's a TRPG I bought years ago, and I just learned it's still getting updates.


For shooters. Metal Wolf Chaos is fun.

Tex Mechs is a student game on Steam. It's free, and only takes 20 minutes to beat.

On PS1, Future Cop LAPD was always a favorite.

Rift Breaker is kind of well known, but I only see it really mentioned as a benchmarking tool. Not played it enough to know how it holds up.

Edit: There's also Lightyear Frontier, which is Harvest Moon with mechs. It made a splash during Next Fest, but I've not really payed attention after that.

 

[BananaSplit²]

If you want a TRPG, Super Robot Wars is a game I've been chipping away at for years on the Vita. I don't know how the sequel is, but it looks similar.

Probably V (which has Space Battleship Yamato 2199 as the guest star) or X (Mashin Yuusha Wataru and Nadia the Secret of Blue Water in this one) I assume. They're available on PS4 and Switch too, and they do have Steam releases albeit region-locked. T is the other title of the International trilogy (with Cowboy Bebop and Space Pirate Harlock) but only available on PS4 and Switch. They're decent titles for the newcomers at least but it's a franchise that no longer holds the same quality as it once had in the past.
SRW30 should be avoided at all costs as it cranks up the issues of the International trilogy while being heavily bloated in the amount of mission levels, so it easily becomes a chore to play.

Outside of the Alpha (PS1 -> PS2) and Z saga (PS2 -> PSP -> PS3/Vita), each SRW game has its own universe and plot so they can be played in any order.
For example, SRW D is an universe primarily ravaged by Getter rays and the Invaders (from Getter Robo Armageddon, which are buffed-up versions of The Thing of John Carpenter) all while Char Aznable won the Axis war. Also most of the Gundam ZZ main characters are dead as their home space colony has been invaded by said Invaders.
Meanwhile, SRW MX heavily focuses on RahXephon (Tokyo gets trapped inside a sphere that looks like Jupiter 70 years ago at the start of the game's sypnosis), Neon Genesis Evangelion, Brave Raideen and UFO Grendizer (Vega's forces invading the Earth). All the Gundam apparences in this title are post-anime, as they already solved their own conflicts, so they act as the support cast instead.

The mainline SRW games can be enjoyed even without watching the respective mecha animes first. In fact, they've introduced me into watching mecha anime that I wasn't familiar before. The home console games also have a lexicon during the visual novel parts to fully explain certain terms and events too (Newtypes, Coordinators, One-Year War, etc.).

As far as fan-translated titles go, you have the choice between:

• Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden (PS1) (sequel to the first Alpha which remains untranslated)
• Super Robot Wars GC (Gamecube)
• Super Robot Wars J (GBA)
• Super Robot Wars W (DS)
• Super Robot Wars A Portable (PSP) (a fair warning, this one is balls hard)

There is also the Original Generations on PS2 which only use OCs (that appeared across the SRW titles) all merged into a single universe, so they require no knowledge of the licensed animes. It's also a full remake of the two GBA games that were officially localized in English.
The first Z is untranslated but there is an available full guide that explains both the story and gameplay parts for people who cannot into moonrunes.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

It gets way worse than that. The RPG is set in a communist utopia that also doesn't make any sense.

I am sadly aware, I've made homebrew shit awhile ago turning it into a Capitalist Utopia instead

Could be Super Meatpunks Forever.

It depends what you consider "not well known" and how many mechs you want.

If you want a TRPG, Super Robot Wars is a game I've been chipping away at for years on the Vita. I don't know how the sequel is, but it looks similar.

I can also recommend Mechanicus. It doesn't have mechs, but there is a giant robot you can unlock. Xcom Enemy Within has mechs you can spec into, sort of. They are great fun and it doesn't get enough of a mention.

An odd one. Templar Battleforce is one I've not played. It's a TRPG I bought years ago, and I just learned it's still getting updates.


For shooters. Metal Wolf Chaos is fun.

Tex Mechs is a student game on Steam. It's free, and only takes 20 minutes to beat.

On PS1, Future Cop LAPD was always a favorite.

Rift Breaker is kind of well known, but I only see it really mentioned as a benchmarking tool. Not played it enough to know how it holds up.

Edit: There's also Lightyear Frontier, which is Harvest Moon with mechs. It made a splash during Next Fest, but I've not really payed attention after that.

Super Robot Wars was my jam ever since I played R, went back and played the originals when I could and I've played most of them by now, have not played 30 yet. I've finished Mechanicus twice, second time with Heretek (fuck that DLC), solid game with a great soundtrack. Haven't played Xcom in years...damn. Never heard of Templar Battleforce so thanks, I'll check it out. Metal Wolf Chaos was fucking great, played the original, never felt more American in my life God damn. That shit got me into AC3 and the rest of the series since.

Side note, someone made an arena mod for AC6 that adds a bunch of new ACs fans have made and one of them is the fucking President from MWC. Tex Mechs looks like goofy fun so I'll check that out too. Future Cop LAPD looks like Brigador mixed with Mechwarrior 3 with Robot Cop vibes so I'm down to boot up Duckstation to play that. I remember Rift Breaker, but never looked too deep into it, didn't look like my kind of game despite me liking Mechs and Base Building games, but separately and only specific BB games. I'm...too picky these days. Never heard of Lightyear Frontier, looks like something I might enjoy despite what I wrote prior. Stylised graphics > realistic graphics any day. Plus it looks like it can run smoothly on my PC (I'm broke and the years have not been kind). I very much appreciate the suggestions, I'm always looking for more if anyone has some.

As far as fan-translated titles go, you have the choice between:

• Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden (PS1) (sequel to the first Alpha which remains untranslated)
• Super Robot Wars GC (Gamecube)
• Super Robot Wars J (GBA)
• Super Robot Wars W (DS)
• Super Robot Wars A Portable (PSP) (a fair warning, this one is balls hard)

There is also the Original Generations on PS2 which only use OCs (that appeared across the SRW titles) all merged into a single universe, so they require no knowledge of the licensed animes. It's also a full remake of the two GBA games that were officially localized in English.
The first Z is untranslated but there is an available full guide that explains both the story and gameplay parts for people who cannot into moonrunes.

My man, cheers.

 

[Kerr Avon]

Lightyear Frontier, which is Harvest Moon with mechs. It made a splash during Next Fest,

Demo ran well on the Steam Deck.

Worst thing I can say is it was boring.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

I've never really understood people who are truly terrified of The Flood.
It's a fun reveal and the build up to it is pretty good, but I wouldn't say it's actually scary.

I just played through the MCC (not including Halo 4) with my nephew, he's not even in double digits and absolutely doesn't find the Flood scary. Gross, yes, but not at all scary. Then again, this kid beat INCISION when he was 7 (before the endboss got nerfed because everyone thought it was too hard) and has an obsession with body horror in general, so for him the Flood is pretty mid. He was mostly just annoyed that he couldn't do his usual tactic of constantly running away so they'd "forget he's there", because they'd actually give chase and hunt him down.

UT2004 is celebrating it's 20 year anniversary today! I doubt Epic is going to do anything about it, though...

In celebration, they'll remove it from the GOG storefront and give it the SWBF Remaster treatment: multiplying the filesize by 100x and stealing a bunch of modder content and code, and it will die cold and alone because no one wants to actually PAY for anything on the EGS.

Rift Breaker is kind of well known, but I only see it really mentioned as a benchmarking tool. Not played it enough to know how it holds up.

I play it every once in a while when I wanna play a simplified Factorio, it's a pretty good game, worth the non-discount price I paid for it. Resources don't need to be routed, they just magically go into your stockpiles like an RTS game. The combat can be pretty fun, especially once you find the weapons you enjoy the most. It's like those old Warcraft III custom maps where you're playing tower defense with an OP hero unit, but with more nuance.

 

[Captain Chromosome]

Odd questions, but how are the builds, how is the story, and are there any hot characters?

Steller Blade is taking all the outrage atm, but I also wonder if someone like the sword using Asian character from the first game would be allowed to make an appearance these days.

As for builds, I remember the characters offered fun play styles that were wildly different from each other.

And of course the first DI sold on that trailer then nothing like that happens in the game, while Dying Light was a mess with it's story, so does DI2 do it better?

They did away the the skill tree and replaced it with a Card system. Each card has a perk and you gain extra slots as you level up. I can't speak to build diversity, but from what I've seen I assume there's a decent bit since you get quite a few alternate cards. A few of the cards I've gotten are shared by one other character, so it looks like there's variety.

Only attractive character I've seen was Emma, but then she spoke. British. Enough said.

Storywise it's a bit on-rails, but the pacing feels good and keeps things interesting. There are some game design issues, but it's really impressive how much of an improvement it is over DI1. There's a proper storyline and they do a good job of "Show, don't tell".

Don't know about replayability, but I'm enjoying it.

 

[ZMOT]

<snip>

just sayin', haven't seen that image in years. your new avatar makes me feel fucking old...

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

just sayin', haven't seen that image in years. your new avatar makes me feel fucking old...

I think I've only ever bought Dole bananas.

Then again, this kid beat INCISION when he was 7 (before the endboss got nerfed because everyone thought it was too hard) and has an obsession with body horror in general, so for him the Flood is pretty mid.

Both based and a bit worrying. This kid will either be a serial killer the likes the Ayleid will be proud of, or a cool artist who can make up sick concept art for horror movies. Or it's a phase, kids are fickle. Either way, impressive. Anyway, I think it's more the idea of what happens when someone is "flood'd" rather than what is shown to us in the games, imagination is what fuels horror (good horror at least).

I finally got around to playing Dead Island 2

That shit released? Wow, completely missed it. Don't care either way, probably dogshit compared to the original. Considering I see that it's mixed on Steam that might be the case. Though I mostly just see reviews telling Epic Games to fuck themselves, glad you're enjoying yourself though. Anything that associates with Epic Games is something I will never give even the slightest chance. I stopped playing Payday 2 completely (was barely playing as is these days) because they removed the fully functional online via Steam and replaced it with the worst online I've seen in ages. Considering PD3 was terrible in several ways and died very quickly because of it, I doubt they know what they're doing for a while now.

Related to the "mech" thing, there's a game called Chaos Galaxy (more specifically Chaos Galaxy 2) I've played for a while now. It's all over the place but it's enjoyable when you get the ball rolling. The developer refuses to patch and balance anything that might be broken or overpowered, ignoring any criticism. The only update the game really got was adding an achievement because someone did something the dev thought impossible (lol). The only reason I played it was because the vibe reminded me of old sci-fi anime, more specifically Gundam tropes. But if you do find yourself playing this game ($20 fuck that wait for a sale, even then it only went on sale once I think at $12) do know you will be handicapped and will be at a disadvantage at every point in the game no matter how much you think you're ahead of the competition. As a test I used Cheat Engine to make myself as strong as possible and it's still not hard to get completely steamrolled. And when you do play as the OP faction(s) in stereotypical fashion the AI will get buffed to compete against you. The game is slow as hell, the soundtrack is lacking and you'll hear the same music for the entire game, it's alright looking at best, hero abilities (especially map ones) are all over the place, and you're pretty much forced to cheese as much as physically possible in order to win. Tactics and Strategy my ass. Yet I have 27 hours in the game trying to beat one campaign and trying to find the fun. 4/10. Mostly wanted to bring it up to see if anyone knows this game and to mention how the developer has been making games in this universe yet they all suffer from the same exact problem. Coming up on 4 games now but at least the newest one has better sprites already, but might be more story focused and mech focused with a PMC unit rather than a big faction like an Empire.

 

[Happy Camper]

Tried out Pirate Doom II over the weekend. I'd recommend it to people that are into that game. Fun and chill wad about lugging around a cannon and shooting peg-legged demons and Voodoo priests in the face.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

>Fallout shills still in full force
>Stellar Blade turns out to have been censored not by Sony but by Shift Up themselves
>Garry's Mod has 20 years of history wiped out as a Nintendo DMCA troll successfully convinces the retard devs to delete them all.
>Escape from Tarkov manages to outjew the Russian game-space by releasing a $250 Edition of the game after the failure of the Arena gamemode, complete with P2W mechanics and the game isn't even finished.

It's all so tiresome...

View attachment 5944459
Finally, after four straight months of faggots DDOSing the Left 4 Dead 2 servers, we're finally free. Now I don't have to play on some faggot's modded server where an idling Tank can teleport onto you and punch you with absolutely no warning, which if you play Expert like I do, is an instant incapacitation. With no warning, I want to emphasize.

Why do these assholes think reinventing the wheel is a good idea?

Nice, been waiting for this to be "solved" as well as it can so I can play again. Now I just need to find someone who isn't a retard (in a bad way) to play with. Have never had a good time with randoms.

Tried out Pirate Doom II over the weekend. I'd recommend it to people that are into that game. Fun and chill wad about lugging around a cannon and shooting peg-legged demons and Voodoo priests in the face.

Pirate games are so lacking these days that a Doom mod is probably the best pirate game to come out in recent memory. Wasn't the original back in 2013? A whole decade later and we get a second one, hell yeah.

 

[Happy Camper]

Pirate games are so lacking these days that a Doom mod is probably the best pirate game to come out in recent memory. Wasn't the original back in 2013? A whole decade later and we get a second one, hell yeah.

It's certainly a contender for the title, that's for sure. Enjoyed it a lot more than the first one too. 2013 was probably the last good year for pirate games too come to think of it, assuming AC: Black Flag is something you enjoyed. Been very dry on that front ever since.

 

[Tri-Tachyon'sClown]

It's certainly a contender for the title, that's for sure. Enjoyed it a lot more than the first one too. 2013 was probably the last good year for pirate games too come to think of it, assuming AC: Black Flag is something you enjoyed. Been very dry on that front ever since.

While I do have some issues with it, Black Flag was not only my favorite pirate game, it's my favorite AC game. Not much of a challenge.