Talk About The Last Game You Played Or Are Playing

[killer5]

Will probably start this off with two games I played recently/am playing now because they are both made from the same studio. Will keep things brief.

Bloodborne:

Really enjoyed this one. Definitely my favorite FromSoftware game to date. Really dug the combat system and the focus of each of the levels. One thing that I have a problem with in most FromSoftware games is that bosses have to let me attack them (or in the case of Sekiro I just have to learn yet another parry pattern). In Bloodborne I just constantly attack or counter (because it is so easy to do since you are forced to counter throughout the entire game). The mechanic where you can break a larger boss's limbs is great and just adds to the aggression in these fights. In contrast the bosses in something like Elden Ring just.. do their anime moves and then eventually I get to attack them a few times. I probably can counter them but it just isn't a primary game mechanic so I would have to spend a lot of time learning each boss and just don't want to do so. In Bloodborne the counter system is almost second nature after your first playthrough and is very viable for several of the bosses and enemies - even Orphan of Koss is easy to counter.

The areas in Bloodborne are also more focused and shorter than something like Elden Ring. You are constantly running forward and killing enemies in this game. It feels more like a beat em up than some moody slow paced action adventure game. The rally system/blood vial system really adds to the aggression since you don't have to find another bon fire equivalent to regain all of your estus flasks.. you just find more blood vials along the way and pad the time out with the rally system. Heck you even find a rune which gives hp back upon executing a counter so you just never die. Such a great system.

The setting is excellent. HP Lovecraft is a pretty tired subject but it was implemented here very well. I was enjoying the games areas and subtle lore throughout my playthroughs.

Surprisingly I was also abusing different armors I found through the game for their different properties such as Frenzy resist. This never happened to me in Elden Ring.. I just played with an armor I thought looked cool and never really used any talismans other than ones for damage buffs that fit in with my build at the time.

And speaking of Elden Ring..

Shadow of the Erdtree:

Very disappointed in this one. I have no idea why I even bought it other than I just needed another game to play and people were talking about it in the office. I am currently taking a break from this one. Because of the build I am using I never really die and also shred bosses (faith for resist incantations, Bolt of Gransax, Blasphemous Blade). I also have no issue using summons since the bosses just sort of do whatever they want the entire time. So I just sit there blowing up each boss.

I find that I am mostly just running all over looking for these items to give me blessings in order to keep up with the stronger bosses I am finding later in the game. I mean.. I loved Elder Scrolls and Fallout (not 76).. but the VAST majority of my time in this game is just running around aimlessly through large areas trying to find blessings instead of being immersed in the world I am in. There is no role playing element in here for me like older Bethesda games (the areas also don't feel like a world to me.. but rather some synthetic thing conjured up by devs - this probably comes from the fact that certain areas are close together but look completely different from one another like running from Limgrave to Caelid). I feel like I am just wasting my time. The areas are pretty though.. but pretty visuals can't save a game. It is a game after all and running around doing nothing but looking for two different items is pretty shitty gameplay.

I mentioned my build previously and this really ties into the whole issue with this game. I have been hearing horror stories of people taking hours to beat a single boss.. yeah fuck that. I will most likely just be watching a video of someone completing this dlc and then moving on because I have zero desire to waste hours of my life on Radahn. Doom is the game where I don't really mind faceplanting a fight for a bit. Elden Ring is a casual whatev game. After playing Bloodborne it just makes me sad that I went from an amazing dlc in the form of The Old Hunters to whatever this Elden Ring dlc is. The story is garbage too. Very disappointing if what I hear about Miquela (spelling) wanting to do with Radahn is true. Just please.

They also brought back dragons.. I am just not going to fight Bayle or whatever on principle because there are several dragons between me and him.

Anyways suggest waiting for a sale on this one.

[stodgyayatollah]

Recently beat Bloodstained rotn. Went through my regular cycle of craving Castlevania and hadn't made the time to play through it yet. My impression is that it may as well be an official entry in the series. Not huge into the Igavanias but tend to enjoy them enough and this one was no exception. I have a habit of grinding a lot in them (I blame Diablo 2) and there was enough to accommodate that with the alchemy and shard systems. The combat wasn't terribly engaging, which was to be expected but I had a good time coming up with farming routes and shutting my brain off for a couple hours here and there while trying to 100% the map. Still have the classic modes that play like the nes games and the curse of the moon spin-offs to go through.

After beating that I decided to give the ps2 Castlevanias another look, which I lost interest in pretty quick but they led me to another game. Devil May Cry. Learned there were some exploits in the first game to mess around with like animation canceling and such so I started playing around with that. It's pretty janky but the kind of jank I've been having fun with and since I beat it back in the day there's also some nostalgia. Never touched any of the sequels but will probably check them out at some point.

That  got me interested in other action games I may have missed out on since I had moved away from console games at some point back then. Which led me to the other game I've been playing. Ninja Gaiden. Still enjoy the nes games so decided to give it a shot and I'm only a couple hours in but I've enjoyed the combat a lot more than dmc so I could see myself going through the whole thing and also checking out the sequels. I like that both games seem to have a bit of classic survival horror structure to them which is really helping with my enjoyment. Requiring good execution in combat is also refreshing after Bloodtained. 

[Bob Page]

I'm playing Teslagrad right now. It's a puzzle-heavy platformer with very little action. I'm mostly playing through it to grab the achievements, as the game has failed to get me invested in its plot and the puzzles aren't really all that satisfying to figure out either. If you absolutely love puzzle games, I'd say get it on a Steam sale.

[sexybzzrak]

I'm playing with my penis rn

[VICE]

Jul 10, 2024 4:45:19 GMT -5 sexybzzrak said:

I'm playing with my penis rn

Original Release or Director's Cut?

[TimeOfDeath]

lol nice

I try to play some games of chess each day against one of the chess.com bots. Normally I play against Nelson (1300) but yesterday I started playing against some canadian chick bot named Wendy (1500). First game I lost and second game was a stalemate. I feel like I've plateaued skill-wise, I still make lots of dumb moves.

[sexybzzrak]

TimeOfDeath you won't really improve if you keep playing with bots.

[TimeOfDeath]

I'm trying to avoid playing against real people so I don't become enraged like I do when I played doom deathmatch a couple times

[bugothecat]

I am going back to Elden Ring as I've not finished it yet and I want to before going to the DLC. Everybody's talking about the DLC so I realized I've been long since I last played Souls-like games (last one was BloodBorne which I still haven't finished). There is still plenty to do in my playthrough to finish it. But I realize I was introduced to Souls-like from DS1 and I've playing and finished 1 and 2 many times and also Demon Souls on PS3, so souls games since DS3 have changed into that very fast non-stop enemy attacks and spectacle fighting compared to the slow strategic flow of the classics. That's why I am struggling with still haven't finished DS3, Bloodborne and Elden Ring. If I go back to fight a boss I finished, I just don't feel confident, I might die 10 times or finish a boss the first attempt. Because I can never understand when I should find a window of opportunity to attack back, instead of constantly rolling. And in Elden Ring I end up using the spirit ashes anyway.

I think as the original poster said Blood Borne at least seems a bit better and I agree. It goes fast again non stop boss attqcking and big compos, I have issues with it. But plays much better for that style of gameplay, don't know why. I also realize I used to like Souls-Like for the world design and exploration, trying to get those soul items you look from a distance hanging under a bridge or on top of something. And fighting regular enemies that to be honest are slow and too easy to parry or backstab. So compared to modern souls, they might look lame to someone coming from the new games.

[pitch-a-sue]

Every year I play less and less video-lames but for a few months I've been indulging in some MK11; currently butt-slamming bots with a jinsei-augmented Mileena while doing brutal towers if not making naggers cry-foul in their sofas when having a taste of Master Tsung's zoning. Prolly gonna stick with such goings 'til next year, perhaps, at some point, revert to Destiny if Xur finally decides to sell special-weapon legacy-engrams so, as a vanilla-only cheap-skate, I can grab an Ice-Breaker and a Pocket-Infinity to freshly (re)start my reign of terror in the Crucible -or(!), occasionaly wake-up some old-console resting in my surroundings to then kill some time with-it.

Another kind of game I'm also playing, although, stealthily-so, in-the-background, is trying to attain 'Cmdr. Keen' status-quo before mr. Mortis do-so.. but, at the same-time, avoiding meme-spamming as means to short the grind - tough shit, this one (ngl).