[SennheiserNoob]

Hitman 1 and 2, some of the most fun level design I've come across in a while - can't wait for Hitman 3 soon

 

[fbang]

Assassin's Creed Valhalla: 7/10. Super well made and detailed.... but I'm 30 hours in, did only the main quest....and feel it,s not getting anywhere. I'm actually going to sell it and redo Ghost of Tsushima (9/10)

 

[GreenBow]

Although I bought Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and loved it. I was critical of one thing when I tried the free weekend or demo time I had with it.

If you get seen by a spy-drone it sends troops and regular sized four-bladed drones and whatever to attack you. I said that the regular drones move faster than was physically possible. .... However I saw a Youtube vid of how fast drones can move. Now I take back what I said about GR: Breakpoint's drones.

 

[fbang]

Hitman 3. Half-way through and it's great so far. 8.5/10

 

[JR1911]

Assassin's Creed Valhalla (PS4 Pro)
Got the platinum trophy a while ago after more than 149hrs played. Of the three Assassin's Creed games I've played (Valhalla, Odyssey and Origins) I'd rate this as the second best, Odyssey is still by far my favorite of the three but I enjoyed Valhalla more than Origins. I did run into a few annoying bugs but luckily nothing game-breaking.
8/10

Crusader Kings III (PC)
I've played a lot of Crusader Kings II and a few days ago I decided to buy the sequel and yes, it's just as addicting as CK II.
9/10

 

[gleanfont]

I am still exploring Uncharted Waters and so far I am liking it - I'll give it an 8 to begin with.

 

[wayyzz]

Satisfactory

This one is an open world exploration, factory building game. This was my first time in to a factory building game and I'm loving it. Very addicting...you've been warned. It is still early access so you can get it pretty cheap and the early access does not reflect poorly on the gameplay. The game is very polished, just the very end game content is lacking but the devs are very engaging and regularly put out large updates and streams covering new content. I'd give this one a 9/10.

 

[judson_w]

Picked up a few older slightly older fighting games recently:

Melty Blood Actress Again Current Code - Yeah, most anime fighters wind up having long names (partly due to several of them making DLC expansions to the game that can be treated like going from versions 1.1 to 1.2; not a fully new game, having additions and tweaks). This game has some interesting mechanics that are fun to mess around with. A decent sized cast of 31. This number really can be tripled though because of the moon phase mechanic. At character select, each character has three moon options (full, half, and crescent). While each option has a set system of mechanics at its disposal across all characters, for an individual character, the moon options can vary the normal and special attacks that are available, thus alter the play style a fair amount.

The movement in this game feels good, and the simple buttons are nice but still allow for satisfying combos and tactics. I have a few hours into the game, but I have been enjoying it a fair amount.

Vampire Savior aka Darkstalkers 3 - Not sure why the fighting game community likes to refer to this as Vampire Savior (or vsav for short), but it is what in the US was known as Darkstalkers 3. I have some memories of playing this on an arcade machine growing up, but I did not go where the machine was much and there was not really a proper arcade where I was. Thus I remember it looking cool but also having zero idea what I was doing and quickly running out of the four quarters my parents reluctantly gave me for the machine.

Now that I am a bit more comfortable with fighting games, I have gone back and found I rather like it. It only has 15 characters but there is some good variety to them. It uses the double life bar system like Killer Instinct and Injustice, and has some really nice sprite animations. I want to put more time into this game but have not made time recently. It would also be nice if the fightcade version of this game had a training mode to mess around in, but oh well.

King of Fighters 2002 Ulimited Match - Picked this up two weeks ago. It is definitely not the newest KOF game, but it has rollback netcode and an impressive cast of 66 characters. For those who are not familiar with the franchise, the matches are 3v3, but unlike the Marvel vs Capcom series or Dragon Ball Fighterz, you cannot tag in or use assists from your characters not on the field. This is a big thing for me because my brain cannot process how to work assists in to extend combos or counter an opponent, which is a big part of those games.

In KOF, the point of the character order is to try to counter what you think your opponent will play and also figure out who needs meter and who does not. The first character starts off with no meter, but if they are KO'ed, the next character gets to start with meter that was built up. Also, the number of bars of meter you can store goes up for each character you have lost (you start with a limit of 3 and on your last character it is 5). The character that is not knocked out, gets a little bit of health back after a round, but not all of it.

With the number of characters it has, it can be hard to make each character fully distinct (or at least as distinct as I might like), but there is still some good variety with a good scale between various extremes.

One small gripe is that SNK likes making complicated inputs for there supers. Most are not too terrible, but the pretzel is pretzel is something I do not feel like attempting.


Final note: I am definitely not good at any of these games yet, so I might not have found the ridiculous broken things in it. Also, I generally play with friends, and not randoms online. Friends are helpful because we can have voice chat, we know our levels, and there is no internal mind games of what some random person is thinking about my skill level.

 

[SilverEars]

Resident Evil 2 Remake

Just like how I remember RE2 being engaging due to the way the game was designed. It's a very addictive system of making a puzzle out of the environment like the buildings. It was well done, and the remake is very faithful to the original with enhanced graphics. One of the rare games I would say worth the time put into it. I don't get pissed off at cheap ass gameplay bosses like some games out there. During this era, RE games had the most balanced gameplay that was easy to pick up and play. I will definitely being continuing off with the 3rd remake.

I find certain things kinda funny like when Ada Wong takes off her coat and she has sexy outfit. lol

 

[tdl2024]

Currently playing:

Rainbow Six: Siege - 6/10. Meh. It's ok, but coming from the old games it's definitely not "tactical" like everyone says. It's a glorified arcade shooter that doesn't know if it wants to be realistic, semi-realistic, full on arcade shooter, or sci-fi space shooter. Been playing since launch, and it's one of the few games I've played where the longer it's around, the more the devs screw everything up (repetitive level design for the "reworks", repetitive operator design, less variety in gameplay thanks to the aforementioned issues, etc). Only reason I'm still playing is because it's the one shooter all my friends play and I guess I can always try rank up to Diamond one of these days.

RE2 Remake - 9/10. It's been a long time since I played the first one on PS1, and I don't remember it being this good. The atmosphere ranges from tense, to spooky, to downright terrifying. It also just looks great. Just finished the first remake, hated it (despite remembering it fondly from my teen PS1 days) thanks to the controls and so-so graphics. This one (2hrs in) has renewed my love for the series. Got 1-6 on steam so if the rest are all as good as this (only ever played 1 and 2 originally) then I know how I'm spending the next month or so.

 

[Kukuk]

I've been playing Mass Effect the last few days. I decided I didn't want to bother waiting for the remaster, as they're changing things that I really don't think need to be changed; most notably the art style and atmosphere.

I feel like this is going to be a common theme with the remaster, and I don't want to support it. I also don't want to support Bioware's current politics, but that's another subject entirely. I have all the games and most of the DLC anyway, so I really don't NEED the remaster.

Mass Effect, though, it's kind of difficult for me to love the way I once did. When it came out it felt so fresh, and so expansive that it was hard to not love it. There's aspects of it I still like, of course, but the number of fundamental issues the game has really drags down my love for the game. The combat system is an utter mess: cover doesn't work 80% of the time, the cover controls are garbage, guns don't have any sort of unique feel to them, accuracy is still in large part controlled by numbers, so even if you have your crosshair on an enemy, there's a very good chance you'll still miss. The AI is maybe the worst I've seen in a game. Allies will get in your way while firing, so you can't hit enemies, but they'll soak up all incoming damage. They'll refuse to take cover, enemies will just rush you and that basically breaks ally AI. And of course, there's the Mako levels, which are just the worst thing in the entire series, and make me dread ever playing this again.

Outside of all that, there's some great character moments, and the story is pretty good overall. A lot of people like to say this has the best story of the series, but I really don't think so. The writing is pretty rough around the edges, lacking eloquence in a lot of dialogue that's meant to be poetic. It's not a mess like, say, Mass Effect Andromeda, but I think it's well below Mass Effect 3, and especially 2. The dialogue wheel is also a hilarious lie, especially in regard to the "neutral" option, which is really not a unique dialogue option, but rather just hides either a paragon or renegade options behind it depending on context. I've actually noticed some dialogue options seeming like all three would have the same spoken line.

I feel like when people talk about this as being the best Mass Effect game, they're looking at it with rose tinted glasses. I think if they picked the game up today and played it, they'd be baffled by a lot of the gameplay mechanics. The overall vibe of the game is pretty engaging, and I can't help but feel if this were a Telltale style game it would work really well, but as a whole it's just not the classic I thought it was. I think maybe I'll rate it 6/10.

I am excited to jump back into Mass Effect 2 and 3; ME2 was always my favorite, and I'm pretty sure that's still going to be the case. ME3 was always solid to me, and I felt most of the hate was unjustified. We're not going to talk about Andromeda.

 

[GreenBow]

I've been playing Mass Effect the last few days. I decided I didn't want to bother waiting for the remaster, as they're changing things that I really don't think need to be changed; most notably the art style and atmosphere.


I feel like this is going to be a common theme with the remaster, and I don't want to support it. I also don't want to support Bioware's current politics, but that's another subject entirely. I have all the games and most of the DLC anyway, so I really don't NEED the remaster.

Mass Effect, though, it's kind of difficult for me to love the way I once did. When it came out it felt so fresh, and so expansive that it was hard to not love it. There's aspects of it I still like, of course, but the number of fundamental issues the game has really drags down my love for the game. The combat system is an utter mess: cover doesn't work 80% of the time, the cover controls are garbage, guns don't have any sort of unique feel to them, accuracy is still in large part controlled by numbers, so even if you have your crosshair on an enemy, there's a very good chance you'll still miss. The AI is maybe the worst I've seen in a game. Allies will get in your way while firing, so you can't hit enemies, but they'll soak up all incoming damage. They'll refuse to take cover, enemies will just rush you and that basically breaks ally AI. And of course, there's the Mako levels, which are just the worst thing in the entire series, and make me dread ever playing this again.

Outside of all that, there's some great character moments, and the story is pretty good overall. A lot of people like to say this has the best story of the series, but I really don't think so. The writing is pretty rough around the edges, lacking eloquence in a lot of dialogue that's meant to be poetic. It's not a mess like, say, Mass Effect Andromeda, but I think it's well below Mass Effect 3, and especially 2. The dialogue wheel is also a hilarious lie, especially in regard to the "neutral" option, which is really not a unique dialogue option, but rather just hides either a paragon or renegade options behind it depending on context. I've actually noticed some dialogue options seeming like all three would have the same spoken line.

I feel like when people talk about this as being the best Mass Effect game, they're looking at it with rose tinted glasses. I think if they picked the game up today and played it, they'd be baffled by a lot of the gameplay mechanics. The overall vibe of the game is pretty engaging, and I can't help but feel if this were a Telltale style game it would work really well, but as a whole it's just not the classic I thought it was. I think maybe I'll rate it 6/10.

I am excited to jump back into Mass Effect 2 and 3; ME2 was always my favorite, and I'm pretty sure that's still going to be the case. ME3 was always solid to me, and I felt most of the hate was unjustified. We're not going to talk about Andromeda.

I tried Mass Effect 2 a few years ago, for the first time ever. ... I was honestly lost with it. I did a few missions at a nightclub, and went back to the ship after. Then after that I had no clue what I was supposed to do next.

As far as I remember, I was prompted to visit people on the ship to see who's who. Loads of boring talk. I hate it when games do that. You just get going and then they make you talk to everyone. Then I had to mine planets for materials by hovering the cursor over areas of a view of a planet. As if I was not bored enough already.

I want to play it - sort of. ... I would wait for the remaster now though.

 

[SilverEars]

RE2 Remake - 9/10. It's been a long time since I played the first one on PS1, and I don't remember it being this good. The atmosphere ranges from tense, to spooky, to downright terrifying. It also just looks great. Just finished the first remake, hated it (despite remembering it fondly from my teen PS1 days) thanks to the controls and so-so graphics. This one (2hrs in) has renewed my love for the series. Got 1-6 on steam so if the rest are all as good as this (only ever played 1 and 2 originally) then I know how I'm spending the next month or so.

Yes, I think the remake was warranted and breath new life into the original PS1 games. PS1 graphics were too limited to create same level of atmosphere that the remake does. The remake has affectively created the spookiness the the original could have had if they had better graphical resources. Remake does seem necessary with the PS1 RE games.

To be honest, there is nothing revolutionary in terms of graphics applied to the remake, but it's just that the original game's concepts were so well executed and the remake provides the much needed graphics enhancement that it works really really well.

I'm a big The Last of Us fan as well, and this one feel spookier due to only one character taking action, and that spooky isolation feeling is felt.

 

[saltyfr0g]

Forza Horizon 4 on Xbox Series X!! So glad they finally brought ray tracing to consoles.

 

[SilverEars]

Currently play Resident Evil 3 Remake, which is excellent and addicting. I like it even better than 2. 2 is great for those that prefer more puzzles, but I feel like 3 just has a better pace in it's story. It's quite addicting. I feel like Zombies, guns, and puzzles, you really can't go wrong. I have to give a lot of credit to those executed these remakes however. They did an excellent job!

I wish they make more RE games like 2 and 3 remake. It's a genre that really can't be wrong IMO. The Last of Us is in a similar genre, and it's also an excellent game.

This is the kind of experience I expect if I was wanting a movie like experience in a video game. It's just executed so well!