[SilverEars]

I just get a feeling this dude is just a big Robocop fan, not to be trusted for unbiased review. lol

 

[SweetCans928]

I would love to play that new Robocop, but it crashes every time if I leave hardware enabled GPU scheduling on. I can just turn that feature off and play fine of course, but I figure I'll just wait and see how the game shapes up with upcoming patches. It's also slightly cropped in 32:9 super ultrawide.

 

[OM hawk]

Rating in Progress: Natural Doctrine

So this is an exceedingly unique tactical JRPG, with an infamously convoluted version of the typical tactical grid turn based combat, where multiple characters can occupy the same square. The game has a reputation for being extremely difficult and complex, but so far I'm finding that the tutorials are more confusing than the gameplay in actual practice. In terms of tactical RPGs, I prefer this style of small squad, character focused campaign, rather than the more dry, strategy game type thing where you tend to just think of your squad as "units". Natural Doctrine has a fair amount of dialogue, but it's more like frequent dialogue breaks between fights, and not so much long non stop monologues, so I like it.

One concern I have is that it looks like will I max out each character's skill tree very soon, despite being in the first chapter of the game, it seems like character improvement from leveling up will dry up real soon, even though I'm sure the game will keep giving me better weapons and equipment.

Already in the first parts of the game I'm given a bit of a choice of what area to go to next, whether to grind in the previous area for levels and treasure or move on with the story right away. If the game opens up more later on, giving me more and more choices as to how fast I progress the main campaign and where to go next, it could become a really fun nonlinear experience, with side quests and optional battles. I like having a choice how much or how little I prepare for the next major encounter.

The combat system itself (now that I'm ignoring the tutorials) is actually pretty intuitive to learn, at least in these first few battles, and it certainly shows potential for a lot of depth. The game in general has a lot of potential, if the story turns out to be good, I'm just worried about these skill trees. If leveling up becomes pointless (due to maxing out the skill trees) that's gonna really suck for progression.

 

[wmf]

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Multiplayer. It's good. Still doing ok for a 50+ player ...

better than the new one just released. so is MW3 2011.

 

[SilverEars]

I picked up Wild Hearts again, but this time it really clicked with me. I like it so much better than Monster Hunter. I like the way attack movesets much better in this. Fighting monsters in this game feels good to. Karakuri is not a gimmick in this game, it's actually useful. Karakuri is so cool. It brings in another dimension to the genre. Maybe it's the dodgeroll in this game is better or the weapon response. Monster Hunter attacks feels delayed. And I hate the dodgeroll, and how the character moves. Wild Hearts dodge feels like Dark Souls dodge.

It's really fun playing in groups like Monster Hunter.



Check this out guys, it may look a lot like Monster Hunter, but it's very unique in it's own way. Lots of interesting stuff going on.

 

[Hoegaardener70]

better than the new one just released. so is MW3 2011.

yeah, I'll give that a pass. They need to do better to keep my attention .

 

[SilverEars]

I picked up Wild Hearts again, but this time it really clicked with me. I like it so much better than Monster Hunter. I like the way attack movesets much better in this. Fighting monsters in this game feels good to. Karakuri is not a gimmick in this game, it's actually useful. Karakuri is so cool. It brings in another dimension to the genre. Maybe it's the dodgeroll in this game is better or the weapon response. Monster Hunter attacks feels delayed. And I hate the dodgeroll, and how the character moves. Wild Hearts dodge feels like Dark Souls dodge.

It's really fun playing in groups like Monster Hunter.



Check this out guys, it may look a lot like Monster Hunter, but it's very unique in it's own way. Lots of interesting stuff going on.

I'm starting to see why I like this game better than Monster Hunter series. The combat feels closer to Fromsoft games, particularly Bloodborne since you fight mainly large Monsters in Bloodborne. It feels like Bloodborne for fighting Monsters, but the dodge look like DS3 (can't say DS1 or 2 since they were clunky) since it's a roll, not a side-step. Dodge feel well tuned, I can still time dodge well while using my slow moving great hammers, which seems to be the weapons I'm an expert at in this game. In general the way the Monsters move, it feel like a Fromsoft combat in terms of Monster movesets. The combat is faster than Monster Hunter which I like, so it's closer to Fromsoft combat. Also, the addition of Karakuki is really cool. Karakuki provides better capabilities to your character in dealing with the large monsters. You can make platforms to do attacks to monster from above, like doing plunge attacks, and the platforms gets developed immediately for you to pull off the moves. Karakuri's are just awsome. It adds something that are needed that these monster hunter games are missing I feel. It's because your character's size is small compared to these gigantic monsters, and it's the solution for your small guy to make up for it's size in combat. It's a very creative idea.

I know this game didn't review well, but I really want to see these developers make more of these games. It's made by Omega-Force, the team that makes Dynasty Warriors, and this is a total surprise what they are capable of. I mean Dynasty Warriors series suck. It's always the same.

I'm a hammer guy in this game it seems. When I contribute my hammer ability, I'm the upfront guy underneath the monster all the time. lol. Best team is, me the front man, another guy that's a Karakuri expert, and the cannon dude. We can take down monsters in record time!

Check this video out. If you have a good team, you can melt bosses like this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WildHearts...eply_volatile_deathstalker_speed_run106_with/

Hammer weapons


This is a good example of why Kurakuri is important in this game

 

[SilverEars]

Tell me this doesn't look awsome. This ripclaw fight music is so awsome! This dude's playstyle gives me Strider vibes. Like a ninja! I like the way the characters move.


Best track I've run into so far, really adds to the vibe when I was fighting with two other dudes. This is how monster hunting music should sound

 

[catscratch]

Oh yeah, games, we should talk about those.

Roboquest is finally out in 1.0 and you should play it. It's an easy 9/10 for me bordering on 9.5, and it feels like it's gonna be game of the year. For real, this game is simply too much fun and is pure quality throughout with only a couple of nits to pick.

Of course I'm still playing Deep Rock Galactic and while I'm not gonna give it a score - it's an evolving game with seasons and changes and such - it's been one of my favorite games of all time, and even a relatively mid last season hasn't really changed that opinion. It's one of a handful of truly old-school games out there and if you miss them, you should give it a try. Expect to wonder where the next few hundred hours go.

Speaking of which, the Lord and Savior of all things old school, Grim Dawn, is about to get another major expansion, its third. The devs were fairly adamant that after the second expansion the game would be done, but here we are. Quoth the lead dev: "much like Ashes of Malmouth [the first first expansion], this will be our last." Right.

With Diablo 4 being, let's face it, kinda ****, if you're in the mood for an action RPG which doesn't suck but which is also decidedly more old-school than something like Path of Exile, Grim Dawn is where it's at. You get a game feel more similar to Diablo 2, while retaining a level of complexity that leans firmly in PoE's direction. You also get nearly limitless build variety with - and I'm not exaggerating here - hundreds and possibly even thousands of viable endgame builds. When the new expansion drops, the class combinations go from 36 to 45 and you're gonna get even more.

I'm not going to give Grim Dawn a score, because it will change soon, but I do have nearly 1000 hours in it, so take a wild guess.

Valheim has had its Mistlands update, and I've played through it, once by myself, once with a friend. I'll be honest here: I don't like the Mistlands very much. It simply doesn't feel like Valheim. This game is unique because of its commitment and dedication to its source material. It really does feel like you're playing through the Viking afterlife. Now, it's been a while since I read Icelandic Sagas but can someone please show me where the Norse sailed to Japan to fight giant bugs while hurling fireballs and raising skeletons. I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I don't seem to recall that happening.

I read that the studio expanded and hired some new people. They need to make sure that these new people know they're not making a DnD game. The game's strength is its atmosphere, its tonal and mechanical coherence, and its authentic feel. If you lose that, then it becomes just another crafting survival game, and the world is absolutely way too full of those already.

I'm not gonna give it a score because it's not a finished game, it remains one of my favorites, but now with a blemish on its record.

I've also been doing a Fallout 76 playthrough with a friend. The word round the campfire is that the game doesn't suck anymore. Well, that's only sorta true... I would say that F76 is an 8/10 game with 2/10 presentation. There are still so many design decisions in this game that are simply baffling, and it feels like someone taking a formula designed for one thing and trying to adapt it to something else, badly. Which, of course, is exactly what's going on. Still, there is some quality to be found in places, the world is interesting, the writing isn't aggressively terrible, and I've been having a good time, though with expectations firmly in check. Let's say 6/10: mid, but not terrible.

Also, we should talk in general about Bethesda and its game design, since I hear so many complaints about it.

TotalBiscuit once said of Skyrim, "as wide as an ocean, as deep as a kiddie pool." He was kinda right, but also kinda wrong.

Bethesda's games are as wide as an ocean and as deep as a kiddie pool in some places and deep enough in other places, and sadly, they don't tell you which is which. They kinda leave it up to you to figure things out, find an enjoyable playstyle, balance things yourself, and craft your own experience.

This means that if you spend all your time where the game is as deep as a kiddie pool, you're not gonna have a good time. But if you know where the game is deep - or stumble on it accidentally, or let modders steer you to the good bits - you'll have a different, and decidedly better experience.

Let's unpack that a bit more. Todd's MO seems to be: you can play the game in whatever way you want. Do you want a 3rd person melee game? You got it. Want a tense, atmospheric 1st person survival experience? You got it. Any way you want to play it, you can play it.

This leads us to a problem. You cannot have a game that simultaneously works well as a 3rd person melee game and a tense, atmospheric 1st person survival game. If you want a good melee combat system, you need things like parries, dodge rolls, i-frames, all those other things that other games have and which we know work well. These things don't work in 1st person because they rely on having good awareness of all of your surroundings, and guess what, in 1st person, you can't see behind you. Or to your sides.

On the flip side, in 1st person, you can't see behind you. Or to your sides. This might seem bad, but there is a reason why all horror games are in 1st person these days: what you can't see is much more terrifying than what you can. Hitchcock once said: "Suspense is not a bomb going off under the table. Suspense is a bomb not going off under the table." 1st person games are naturally more tense, and thus they lend themselves more to slow-paced atmospheric exploration, and they have better shooting mechanics too, since you see the world from the point of rotation of the camera.

So what does this mean? It means that if you keep their games to where they're at their best - effectively 1st person open world immersive sims, because let's face it, that's what they are, or at least have been since Skyrim - then you stand a much better chance of having a good time than if you force them to compete with Elden Ring by trying to make the game mimic that experience. It will never do that well, cause in order to do that well, it would have to be a sucky 1st person game with all sorts of mechanics that don't work at all there.

There's a lot more to it but I've ranted enough already. You get what you put it, and if you don't know what to put in, you might not end up having a good time. A smart dev would limit your options and keep the game within the boundaries of what works, but, well, we have Todd and his dreams.

And if you are trying to make the games look bad to farm clicks for a youtube video, then you won't have to try very hard. But that won't be reflective of everyone's experiences.

Oh yeah, Starfield? Never played it lmao. I'll get back to you when I do. Looks kinda meh tbh.

 

[benhatchins]

plants vs zombies - 4/5. Also got myself some games new games, but unfortunately they are not working for some reason. Was checking family dollar return policy and see if I can give them back actually. In the end, while the new games may not have lived up to expectations initially, the prospect of resolving the situation through the store's return policy offers a glimmer of hope. It's a reminder of the importance of both the gaming experience itself and the supportive policies that contribute to a hassle-free enjoyment of one's favorite pastime.

 

[Ryuga]

Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate. Was on sale on the Switch Eshop.
9/10

 

[Oboe]

Classic Castlevania on the switch.

 

[Kukuk]

Currently playing a bunch of games (more than I should), but the one new one I'm playing is the Avatar game. So far I'm quite liking it, although I'm still pretty early in the game. It kinda falls into the same trap as other Ubisoft games in that it feels a little aimless, but thankfully it seems like there's a lot less padding; certainly a hell of a lot less than the latest Assassin's Creed games.

The game is visually incredible. Maybe not the best looking game on the market, but definitely like top 5. One thing that's kind of interesting is there's a secret "unobtanium" graphics preset, and it's a doozy. It's really a good thing it's hidden, because here's how it runs on an RTX 4090 with balanced DLSS.

An AMD card would have no chance in hell of running it, and that would be a bad look considering it's AMD sponsored. For added context, with the regular "max" settings, I'm getting 90FPS+.

So far I'd say it's probably a 7/10 game. Story does nothing for me, but the gameplay and immersion are what keep me going.

 

[SilverEars]

Currently playing a bunch of games (more than I should), but the one new one I'm playing is the Avatar game. So far I'm quite liking it, although I'm still pretty early in the game. It kinda falls into the same trap as other Ubisoft games in that it feels a little aimless, but thankfully it seems like there's a lot less padding; certainly a hell of a lot less than the latest Assassin's Creed games.

The game is visually incredible. Maybe not the best looking game on the market, but definitely like top 5. One thing that's kind of interesting is there's a secret "unobtanium" graphics preset, and it's a doozy. It's really a good thing it's hidden, because here's how it runs on an RTX 4090 with balanced DLSS.


An AMD card would have no chance in hell of running it, and that would be a bad look considering it's AMD sponsored. For added context, with the regular "max" settings, I'm getting 90FPS+.

So far I'd say it's probably a 7/10 game. Story does nothing for me, but the gameplay and immersion are what keep me going.

Why would AMD card have no chance? They just don't perform well for Ray-tracing. For rasterization only, they have good performing cards. They have the 7900 XTX right?

It would be more reasonable to see the benchmarks to make that conclusion.

Anyway, I've been heavily into Wild Hearts. Not very active here due to that. lol It's fun, I highly recommend.

 

[Kukuk]

It uses RT reflections and global illumination (among other things), with the reflections in particular being extremely demanding at the higher settings. With even the 7900XTX being about a generation behind on RT performance, there's not much hope of anything AMD running the ultra-max settings well. Even with frame generation the experience would be poor.

One thing that's kind of interesting is there's no explicit option for RT; it's more heavily integrated into the settings. I suspect that's going to be more common, moving forward, as developers lean more heavily into RT. I'd be curious to see how the various presets compare between AMD and Nvidia.