The Video Game Thread: What are you Playing?

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Despite a lack of optimism about Streets of Rage 4, I decided to pay for it on PS4 and give it a shot anyway. I was pleasantly surprised.

I've played the story mode several times through. I gave arcade mode a shot and wiped out on level 9. Playing with the retro soundtrack is a must.

Also still playing Langrisser. I finished all endings for Langrisser I and now I'm a few missions in on Langrisser II.

For whatever reason I loaded up the Genesis Collection and found myself playing Shining in the Darkness. It really clicked with me for some reason, so I've put more time into it than I ever have before (I've had a copy of the actual cart since the 90s).

Also got back to Tempest 4000. I still suck, but I finally managed to have a game as good as the first session I ever played after buying it a year and a half ago. I still can't crack a million, though. But I'm going to try and focus on it for a while and see if I can get any better or if I'm just hopeless.

I should probably play some Sonic Mania.
 
Playing the great sf writer Thomas Disch's text adventure Amnesia in an web emulator here. I expect it to eventually become as frustratingly obtuse as most classic text adventures but right now it's quite fun.
 
Just when I thought I was out... because of Battlefield V...

The band has regrouped and pulled me back in. Battlefield 4... how I've missed you my old friend. The Old Man Killas have taken the field once more!
 
Within the past few days I discovered Party Hard. It's an older game from 2015. I don't know how long it has been on PS4, but it was on sale for about three bucks recently and I snagged it since it looked potentially interesting.

It's a retro styled game with visuals aping a sort of 8/16 bit era that never quite was. Gameplay has something of an arcade type feel even though it isn't anywhere near that frantic. Each level takes place on a single screen representation of a party location teeming with partygoers. And you play...

A slasher there to kill every last one of them.

As expected, stealth is important. You don't want to get caught while slaughtering your hapless victims. If someone sees you killing or near a body they run to the phone to call the cops. If the cops catch you, then you lose the level and have to start over.

I don't know what kind of legs the game will have in the long run, but I've been playing it all evening for the past few evenings. It has short circuited spending time with other games. When I fail a level I immediately want to try again. When I pass a level I immediately want to see what the next level will be like. It is definitely one of those "just one more go" types of games.
 
I started to play Phantom Doctrine on PC as it was on sale and it seems like a promising lowbudget combo of XCOM and espionage but I found the base-building game a bit too obtuse for my liking and may return to it later.
 
Voros said:
I started to play Phantom Doctrine on PC as it was on sale and it seems like a promising lowbudget combo of XCOM and espionage but I found the base-building game a bit too obtuse for my liking and may return to it later.
Click to expand...

I saw that on the PSN a while back. It looked interesting, but I also kind of felt that if I wanted to play something like XCom, I'd play XCom (and I haven't in a while). Then I forgot the name of it and couldn't recall it to save my life.

There's another one that struck me as being like that. While Phantom Doctrine is XCom with spies instead of aliens, there was another one that was XCom with drug cartels instead of aliens. I think it was called Narco?

Anyway, if they go on massive discount I'll probably check them out. It's just that my tastes lately tend toward the retro end. There was one called Spaceland I had made a note to check out if it goes on sale.

Hey... Has anyone tried out Wargroove? I stumbled upon that one while browsing the PSN and the trailer made it look like a fantastic Advance Wars style game. Anyone know if it's any good?
 
My wife received a whole bunch of new games in the mail recently:
MegaTagmension Blanc + Neptune VS Zombies for PS Vita
Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart for PS Vita
Trials of Mana for PS4
DATE A LIVE: Rio Reincarnation for PS4
BlazBlue Chronophantasma Extend for PS4
.hack//G.U. Last Recode for PS4
Sakura Wars for PS4

Now that she finished Final Fantasy VII Remake she started on Sakura Wars.

03e30e2b6e14d873f8685ae58b2025b60c1317ce.gif
 
Last edited:
3rik said:
Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart for PS Vita

Sakura Wars for PS4
Click to expand...

I played Hyperdevotion Noire some years ago. I enjoyed it.

I was interested in PS4 Sakura Wars until I realized they had changed the series from a TacRPG to an action game.
 
Voros said:
I started to play Phantom Doctrine on PC as it was on sale and it seems like a promising lowbudget combo of XCOM and espionage but I found the base-building game a bit too obtuse for my liking and may return to it later.
Click to expand...

I played and finished Phantom Doctrine twice. I liked it quite a lot, but it does have a ton of issues. Basically a lot of the systems in the game, base-building, weapon upgrading and so on, feels kind of half-baked and unfinished. It's like the developers, either didn't have enough time to develop them or simply were too ambitious. A lot of the missions later on, also became a bit too samey.
But despite all it's flaws, I would still recommend the game to any XCOM fan. At least on a sale.

G Gabriel the name of that game is Narcos: Rise of the Cartels. I advise you against getting that one. A friend of mine has it, and he says it's garbage. For instance, you can only move one soldier at a time when it's your turn, instead of the entire team.
 
Finished Deliver Us the Moon, a sort of adventure game where the Earth has run out of resources and gets power from a Fusion reactor on the Moon that beams power down to Earth. You go to find out why the Lunar colony went quiet five years ago as the Earth faces a power and environmental crisis.

Nice and short (~4 hours) with very good visuals of the Moon. Some say the story is predictable, but I just thought it was sensible without needing twists. Still a bit pricey for what it is perhaps, maybe one for a sale.

delivermoon_10.jpg
 
Last edited:
Fired up The Witcher 2 since I never finished it. Game play is clunky, graphics dated, but some decent writing.
 
Séadna said:
It's physically possible if that's what you mean. It's space based Wireless Power Transmission (WPT). A few real life space agencies have looked into it for near Earth orbit solar collectors.
Click to expand...
Reminds me of Brin's Uplift Saga. There are a ring of satellites around the sun that essentially collect solar energy up close and beam it back to Earth in laser form. They may even relay to the moon, I forget the details.

Man, it's been ages since I thought about Uplift Saga. That series is a little corny (spoiler: the plucky humans always seem to pull it off in the end against decadent galactic civilizations), but there's a lot of fun and clever sci-fi ideas that litter the series.
 
Current games:

Xcom: Chimera Squad - did a burst of this at launch but haven't touched it again. For a tenner I can overlook it's many issues and appreciate what it provides as a low impact tactical game in the genre, and I like how they are using an ABABAB system instead of their classic AAABBB initiative, but otherwise I got distracted (which is typical for me).

Ghost Recon: Wildlands - it's a dumb, michael bay-esque third person action shooter, nothing ground breaking. I enjoy it as a game that I don't have to think about and just get to fly around being tacticool picking shite up and headshotting guys with a movie 'silencer' that's dead quiet.

Men of War: Assault Squad 2 - I've been recently rewatching the HBO war series (worked backwards from Generation Kill to Pacific to Band of Brothers) so I'm on a bit of a WW2 kick, and got a cheap copy of this on sale. It's a fun, somewhat challenging real-time strategy title with an impressive engine that handles tank combat quite well. The AI isn't particularly smart and nor does it do any sort of tactics outside of defence in force or all out swarm attacks, but it's a fun way to lose an hour.

Green Hell - My wife and I are both fans of survival games to some extent: we played Subnautica sat side-by-side on the same PC, giving advice and being wowed by the wonder of the game. We played The Forest together with a larger group of friends and had fun surviving and collecting resources but the cannibal/monster element and story wasn't particularly interesting to us. We heard of Green Hell and after an intense week of OT for me, I decided to splurge some of my pay+1/2 money on two copies for us both. We're hooked! 17 hours over the weekend in co-op survival deep within the amazonian jungle. It's been a tense battle getting a camp together, getting sustainable food and water sources, and just outright fighting or dealing with the many threats of death. What I really enjoy about the game is how grounded in reality a lot of the mechanics and systems seem to be: Need clean water while it's raining? Why not just drop a coconut half to collect some? Need some way to deal with an infected wound? Maggots could clean that. Really happy with this purchase!
 
Picked up a few more games for the PS4.

Ronin was $2, and bills itself as a turn based platformer. That's a pretty accurate description. You can run around in realtime until enemies notice you and then it switches to a turn based combat mode, but not an RPG. The game's style reminded me of the old Xiao Xiao stick figure flash movies from the early 00s. I found it very addictive and tactical. I don't think I'll be dropping any of the other games I'm currently focusing on to dedicate to Ronin, but it was definitely a fun way to spend the afternoon and I'll probably come back to it.

Raging Justice was about $3, and is a 2d scrolling brawler. It's done in the style of the old digitized actor/digitized render games from the late 80s and early 90s. It's an homage to games like Pit Fighter and the brawlers of that era. It has an interesting mechanic for arresting criminals, which superficially reminds me of a related mechanic in NARC, but is far more fundamental here. My partner and I played one run-through of Raging Justice, and that was enough for now. It was a pretty decent purchase at $3. We will return to it in the future, but it certainly isn't good enough to dethrone Streets of Rage 4, or even River City Girls or Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds. If anyone cares about my recommendation, get it while it's on sale because it's fun enough, but probably avoid it at full price.

Finally, I got Fight'N Rage for the full price of $20. It's another 2d scrolling brawler. This one is in the style of the old late 80s/early 90s Capcom and Konami brawlers. TMNT is a key influence with the cast consisting of mutated animals and some levels clearly ripped from the Konami game. It nails that feel of kidvid to brawler but trying to be edgy nature of the time it homages. The characters are interesting and varied. Gameplay is a sort of mix of the fast paced button mashing of Capcom and Konami brawlers mixed with just a hint of something from the old Technos catalog. This one was an excellent purchase even at the full price, and might be competing with Streets of Rage 4 for my partner and I. What it lacks in that nostalgic familiarity, it makes up for in gameplay and pacing.

Still playing a bit of Party Hard, but I completed the main story this weekend and have all the characters unlocked, so I'm kinda feeling it's time to move on. My partner and I have still been playing Streets of Rage 4, and now we have all characters unlocked. We were looking through the Extra galleries and were irritated that Electra didn't make it into the game, because her redesign looked pretty good. It's also a shame Soya (Beano) didn't make it, because his design looked lifted straight from SoR2. At least Beano made it into a secret bonus level.
 
Séadna said:
It's physically possible if that's what you mean. It's space based Wireless Power Transmission (WPT). A few real life space agencies have looked into it for near Earth orbit solar collectors.
Click to expand...
You mentioned a fusion reactor. But why on the moon?
 
Picked up Streets of Rage 4 for the Switch and, just like everyone else, I'm really enjoying it. Has the feel of a lost Mega Drive game, with the visuals and enhancements of something modern.
 
Gabriel said:
Picked up a few more games for the PS4.

Ronin was $2, and bills itself as a turn based platformer. That's a pretty accurate description. You can run around in realtime until enemies notice you and then it switches to a turn based combat mode, but not an RPG. The game's style reminded me of the old Xiao Xiao stick figure flash movies from the early 00s. I found it very addictive and tactical. I don't think I'll be dropping any of the other games I'm currently focusing on to dedicate to Ronin, but it was definitely a fun way to spend the afternoon and I'll probably come back to it.

Raging Justice was about $3, and is a 2d scrolling brawler. It's done in the style of the old digitized actor/digitized render games from the late 80s and early 90s. It's an homage to games like Pit Fighter and the brawlers of that era. It has an interesting mechanic for arresting criminals, which superficially reminds me of a related mechanic in NARC, but is far more fundamental here. My partner and I played one run-through of Raging Justice, and that was enough for now. It was a pretty decent purchase at $3. We will return to it in the future, but it certainly isn't good enough to dethrone Streets of Rage 4, or even River City Girls or Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds. If anyone cares about my recommendation, get it while it's on sale because it's fun enough, but probably avoid it at full price.

Finally, I got Fight'N Rage for the full price of $20. It's another 2d scrolling brawler. This one is in the style of the old late 80s/early 90s Capcom and Konami brawlers. TMNT is a key influence with the cast consisting of mutated animals and some levels clearly ripped from the Konami game. It nails that feel of kidvid to brawler but trying to be edgy nature of the time it homages. The characters are interesting and varied. Gameplay is a sort of mix of the fast paced button mashing of Capcom and Konami brawlers mixed with just a hint of something from the old Technos catalog. This one was an excellent purchase even at the full price, and might be competing with Streets of Rage 4 for my partner and I. What it lacks in that nostalgic familiarity, it makes up for in gameplay and pacing.

Still playing a bit of Party Hard, but I completed the main story this weekend and have all the characters unlocked, so I'm kinda feeling it's time to move on. My partner and I have still been playing Streets of Rage 4, and now we have all characters unlocked. We were looking through the Extra galleries and were irritated that Electra didn't make it into the game, because her redesign looked pretty good. It's also a shame Soya (Beano) didn't make it, because his design looked lifted straight from SoR2. At least Beano made it into a secret bonus level.
Click to expand...

I liked Ronin but often didn't feel like I have enough time to commit to getting really good at a lot of games. I burn out pretty quickly on a lot of games when I feel like I've got the basic idea down. Although I like a lot of short and spiky games that you can just pick up and blast away in for shorter sessions, one reason I feel drawn to a lot of roguelike games.
 
Last edited:
3rik said:
You mentioned a fusion reactor. But why on the moon?
Click to expand...
Like Edgewise Edgewise said to extract tritium from moon rock. Cheaper to pull it out of the rock there than on Earth, lower transportation costs due to lower gravity and other stuff. There was a couple of papers in the 80s showing tritium mining and fusion on the moon is, outside of initial cost, far more efficient than doing so on Earth and hence might be the more viable long term method. The game is based around that.
 
Continuing my quest to finish some games I've had forever but never been able to get anywhere with, I am now playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I think I've gotten the hang of it this time. I seem to spend less time confused and frantic, and more time actually tiptoeing my way past guards like a proper cyborg commando.

Admittedly, I'm pretty sure that a really proper cyborg command doesn't lose his bearings in the middle of the enemy installation and spends half an hour very deftly sneaking his way back to what turns out to be the same door he came in through... :tongue:
 
Some years ago, I discovered some fans were making a remake of Half-Life 1 in the Source engine. I didn't check it out at the time, because it wasn't completely finished, and therefore completely forgot about it.

I discovered a full version had been released some months ago, on Steam. It's called Black Mesa instead of just Half-Life 1: Remake.
It is absolutely amazing. They have stayed true to the original. The Black Mesa part of the game, is almost completely the same as the original, except they maybe made a couple of levels a bit shorter. At least, that's what I have read on the internet. It's been so many years since I last played the original, that I didn't notice.

There this remake makes its asking price of 18 euro completely worth it, is the Xen part of the game. They have changed this part completely, from it's lackluster original design. Before it was a part that felt like an afterthought, now it feels as good as the rest of the original game and the remake was/is. I can't recommend this enough.
 
Yeah the Xen section is a massive improvement on the original. Just the vistas, seeing the Vortigaunts as slaves, the chase section in the forests and the biotechnological factories.
 
So many things to save up for. Black Mesa is on the list. But right now, I'm going through Monster Hunter Lite, AKA Dauntless.
 
Still going at it with Borderlands 3. Haven’t had this much fun with a game since forever. It really is something to get into a game right as content is being developed and released, as opposed to years later, which is what I usually do. We’re doing content as fast as it drops and we still have a few quests and challenges to do.

If/when we leave I’d really like to get into a co-op fantasy game; a Diablo-like would be great but O’ve been curious about Elder Scrolls Online — not crazy about MMOs but it might be the closest we’ll ever get to “co-op Skyrim” (which is what I really wish we could play!)
 
My wife ordered the Beamdog Ultimate Collector's Edition...

beamdog-ultimate-collector-s-edition-playstation-4_8792332326.jpg


I've never played any of these games. They look like something I may enjoy but I'm told they're difficult.
The metal dice (II) are quite nice and the very sturdy dice tray (VII) is tacky but fun.
 
3rik said:
My wife ordered the Beamdog Ultimate Collector's Edition...

beamdog-ultimate-collector-s-edition-playstation-4_8792332326.jpg


I've never played any of these games. They look like something I may enjoy but I'm told they're difficult.
The metal dice (II) are quite nice and the very sturdy dice tray (VII) is tacky but fun.
Click to expand...
I'm not a fan of Beam Dog's choices in some of the changes they implemented in some of those games, but the only ones that are truly brutal is the Icewind Dale series. The rest can be hard, but they're scaled for more tactical D&D level play. Do it smart and you'll do just fine.
 
3rik said:
My wife ordered the Beamdog Ultimate Collector's Edition...

beamdog-ultimate-collector-s-edition-playstation-4_8792332326.jpg


I've never played any of these games. They look like something I may enjoy but I'm told they're difficult.
The metal dice (II) are quite nice and the very sturdy dice tray (VII) is tacky but fun.
Click to expand...
Planescape: Torment is one of those once in a generation games that changes the industry. Truly one of the best pieces of storytelling.
 
3rik said:
My wife ordered the Beamdog Ultimate Collector's Edition...

beamdog-ultimate-collector-s-edition-playstation-4_8792332326.jpg


I've never played any of these games. They look like something I may enjoy but I'm told they're difficult.
The metal dice (II) are quite nice and the very sturdy dice tray (VII) is tacky but fun.
Click to expand...

I didn't find them difficult, if you're familiar with D&D in particular. Planescape can be played with very little in terms of combat.

I think the rep for difficulty may come from the beginning of Baldur's Gate where your solo PC can be taken out by random wolves at the beginning and one of the first fights that you need to win to progress is crazily out of whack but once you get past that it isn't hard at all. Not sure if they fixed that first fight in the new edition or not.
 
Voros said:
I didn't find them difficult, if you're familiar with D&D in particular. Planescape can be played with very little in terms of combat.

I think the rep for difficulty may come from the beginning of Baldur's Gate where your solo PC can be taken out by random wolves at the beginning and one of the first fights that you need to win to progress is crazily out of whack but once you get past that it isn't hard at all. Not sure if they fixed that first fight in the new edition or not.
Click to expand...
The original Icewind Dale, I remember the first big fight having two Ogres and a pack of Hobgoblins to deal with before you can hit Level 2. That was rough. And it only got beefier from there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top