Any gamers around here?

[Hydra009]

So I went ahead and bought the expansion packs to Guild Wars 2, and man, am I having buyer's remorse.

The vanilla game is very approachable, some tricky stuff but fairly easy on newbies.

The expansions are like nintendo hard.  Someone in the dev team had the bright idea to make the open world not so open - more of a series of narrow tunnels and bridges that snake around and up and down.  Also with steep cliffs everywhere.  So good luck getting from point A to point B without a compass, a sextant, and the divine favor of at least one major deity.

These narrow tubes are choked to the gills with very aggressive and difficult mobs.  But there is one cool thing - there are all sorts of new exotic statues/mushrooms/etc you can visit to aid you.  Oh wait, you're not trained to use those as a newbie.  Better go sink a ton of hours in these new superhard zones and maybe someday doing it will just be a major headache instead of a white-knuckle affair.

I'm starting to ask myself, why bother going through all that?  I bought this game to mess around and have fun, not start a second job!

On the plus side, access to mounts
On the downside: daily quests are more likely to feature new zones, which are much more difficult and time-consuming, which is a huge bummer

3/10 would not recommend

[Hydra009]

So it turns out that I was exploring some maps intended for group play as a solo character.  That's why they were so hard.

Basically, it was the RPG equivalent of spending the night at Utgarda-Loki's house and being unable to drink a single horn filled with water (the horn was replenished by the ocean, so drinking it would require drinking the entire ocean, an impossible task)

[Shiranu]

Oh, I want to see what Miyazaki can do with this IP - Dark Souls combat, but in Mech suits?

[Shiranu]

I've just discovered Sessions: Skate Sim and... man, it's good. I needed a good skating game since all my favorite places are now torn up, over-crowded or under-construction.

Unlike Skate or Tony Hawk, where the animations are per-recorded and repeated every time, Sessions goes for a different route - both legs are controlled by the left and right control stick to it's leg... and where you move the legs, the board uses physics and math to follow.

It can be reigned down a bit, but when you go full out... hard math making every small mistake count... it is a dopamine rush every time you land something.

I prefer to longboard, which would be crazy if they had in this game, but you can "kinda" ride the skateboard like one. I'm not amazing in real life, so I like more just a chill - vibey - ride. Translates well into this game, since there is no "high score" or anything to pressure you. Just skating for the fun of it.

Won't post them here obviously, but I think I might try to get at least 3 good lines in a week; the camera editor in this game is insane as well, so can hopefully get these looking artistic.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I have X-Box and Steam, and I'm frustrated with both.

[the_antithesis]

I have X-Box and Steam, and I'm frustrated with both.

You should be.

Where does the cartridge plug in?

[Mr.Obvious]

Ma arthur morgan got his red dead redemption yesterday.
Few years since a game touched me so.
Knew it was coming, but still.

[Mike Cl]

Ma arthur morgan got his red dead redemption yesterday.
Few years since a game touched me so.
Knew it was coming, but still.

Have you played it yet?  I downloaded it yesterday.  Am clearing some decks so I can go at it undisturbed for awhile.

[Mr.Obvious]

Have you played it yet?  I downloaded it yesterday.  Am clearing some decks so I can go at it undisturbed for awhile.

Yeah, got to the epilogue yesterday.

Hell of ride, cowpoke.

[Shiranu]

Ghost of Tsushima - Man... I'm not horribly far into this game but man... what a world. I haven't even made it to the second of three "main" zones yet, and I constantly find myself just walking & watching the swaying of bamboo and lush trees - looking upon fields of chrysanthemums and violet - relaxing in a hot spring to gain health and to contemplate in a rare peace for a samurai or writing a haiku before storming a Mongol fort - feeling the line between life and death reach between the millimeters of their spear and your torso, or the flowing beauty of a strike so clean you barely feel as the flesh is split of the invader that soils your lands.

And here's the thing - I wouldn't call myself a samurai guy. I've watched some Kurosawa, probably know a fair bit more than your average American about Japanese culture, but it's not really part of my identity any more than my love of Westerns or punk rock, or Middle Eastern and Middle Age history, philosophy and religion. It's generally more "boring" stuff I'm interested in anyways.

Even then, this game is the most unbelievably immersive experience I've ever had on a video game and that makes it "perfect" to me - I see it's flaws, but I just truly do not notice them; it's about as close to seeing the world through another human's eyes as the most engaging of novel.

 The story itself is generic and not going to win any awards, and that's okay - that's actually what GoT does so great; it doesn't try to re-invent the wheel but instead make the most efficient and high-quality tire you could possibly want at a reasonable price for the masses... that analogy got weird, the point is it does it's job and that's all I want.

Anyways, I could write another 20 paragraphs at bare minimum about all the smaller things that have drawn me in... but I kinda want to get back to playing it now. If you cant guess yet, it's really good.

[Mr.Obvious]

Finished re8, got it for christmass.
Lots of fun. Some things it did better than re7, but in other regards re7 was better.

Now playing jedi: fallen order.
Started it on hard, despite not having all that much experience with these kinds of games.
But i am now too stubborn to lower the difficulty setting.

[Shiranu]

Fallen Order was a very happy surprise to me, great game.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You should be.

Where does the cartridge plug in?

We just bought a house, not much toy money for now.

[Blackleaf]

Do you guys have thoughts on the Final Fantasy VII Remake series so far? For me, I am a little bit unsure of what to think of it. When it comes to the gameplay, it's brilliant. The combat feels so good. It's hard, but fair. You just need to get a handle of an enemy's attack patterns and vulnerabilities to defeat them. Graphics? Holy Hell. Watch the opening of the game and tell me when it switches from prerendered to in-game graphics. You can't. The game looks amazing.

Where the games have me worried, though, is the story. With the first part of the series, the parts of the game that recreate the original game are awesome to experience with modern graphics and voice acting. However, when the...what are they called? Whispers? When they show up, they irritate me by bringing the story to a halt. Sephiroth shows up way too soon in the story. The brand new parts of the story often are the weakest parts. It really, REALLY drags towards the end, once they get in Shinra HQ. And now, going forward, we know they're not limited to the original story, so it may be mostly original story going forward.

The Yuffie DLC was similar for me. Loved the beginning, but it starts to drag once in Shinra HQ. Starts strong, but new enemies and story at the end really get on my nerves.

So I'm worried the series may turn out to be a really polished turd in terms of story. lol

[Mr.Obvious]

I never played the old ff7. And the whisper dudes really had me confused, as such.

Still, the story, when it progressed, was interesting. But i get you, the whispers halt it and if you haven't played the ff7 original, they are confusing to boot. I didn't get what they were for until the very end of the game. And i agree, sephiroth was just a weird pressence. As someone new to the game i felt like i was assumed to know more about him, because i didn't get much during the game itself. Wich made the end fight seem empty.

I also for the life of me couldn't finish one of the nerd-kid sidequests, and thus missed a lot of aeons.

Still. Visually pleasing. One of the few times a love triangle was handled in a way i found amusing.
I laughed at times. I am glad i didn't need to grind anywhere.

There are a lot of good things.

But... ... it is not a game i am going to 100%. Or play again anytime soon. It is good, but... it has a lot of buts.

I just finished jedi, fallen order. Judt today.
Also a good game, but with a lot of buts.

The combat was challenging at first. But i grew accustomed to it, even on the hard difficulty. In essence it is not unfair. But it does have some problems.
Camera angles trip you up. Your bot doesn't heal you evey time you ask.  Glitches do occur. Sometimes stormtroopers loaded into the map too late. Sliding and jumping doesn't control well, though.
And one of the characters has weirdly rendered eyes.
And the characters,  while i like them, hardly get enough screen time to see their relationships evolve. We just see them getting into q new fase in their relationship, pretty much, skipping the actual growth...

But, what bothers me the absolute most... i am two trophees, a bronze and a silver or gold, away from 100% the game and getting a platinum.
And for the silver or gold one, i need one more collectible... and i know i picked it up already... but it didn' f-ing register.
So now i would have to replay the entire game in hopes that now it would. I could fo it on easy and go through relatively fast ... probably i won't, because the game is a bit of maze and it would be too much of q hassle... but i am soooo fucking close.
This game in effect blue balled me.