What Video Game Are You Currently Playing?

The Dreamcast version of Soul Reaver with the fan-made HD texture pack by Raina Audron:

I really like how the water looks. Makes me want to drink the screen.

Wolfenstein The New Order, Coffee Quake, and some others for right now!

8 hours ago, MrFroz said:

The Dreamcast version of Soul Reaver with the fan-made HD texture pack by Raina Audron:

 

 

 

I really like how the water looks. Makes me want to drink the screen.

I always wanted to play Soul Reaver. I was/am huge into the Tomb Raider franchise with the first 3 being my absolute favorites. At the time they came out Doom was the only thing that I felt had that level of immersion. Well my friend had Soul Reaver for PS and it looked like just a cooler Tomb Raider type game with some added cool mechanix. He wasnt that into it and I only got to play a little bit into it because we were young and too busy partying. I kinda forgot all about it till I ran across it on an emulation station I picked up a couple of years ago but I was never able to get the controller settings to work properly and the game itself was too janky to play on that system. I really would like to get it running on my PC finally. Thanks for reminding me about it.

I'm struggling to finish FEAR 2 again. I don't know why, I'm not even enjoying it. The AI and slowmo is pretty cool but it got tiresome a long time ago. 

After that I'm gonna go after the final achievement I'm missing in Blood and then likely a very, very long Vampires or Empire campaign in Warhammer 2.

10 hours ago, Insaneprophet said:

I always wanted to play Soul Reaver. I was/am huge into the Tomb Raider franchise with the first 3 being my absolute favorites. At the time they came out Doom was the only thing that I felt had that level of immersion. Well my friend had Soul Reaver for PS and it looked like just a cooler Tomb Raider type game with some added cool mechanix. He wasnt that into it and I only got to play a little bit into it because we were young and too busy partying. I kinda forgot all about it till I ran across it on an emulation station I picked up a couple of years ago but I was never able to get the controller settings to work properly and the game itself was too janky to play on that system. I really would like to get it running on my PC finally. Thanks for reminding me about it.

I still need to finish that game at some point. I had it on Dreamcast years ago... actually I think I still have the disc somewhere around here, but I don't have my Dreamcast anymore.

But anyway, if you do decide to go back to it, I highly highly recommend using the SR1 HD Remaster found here: https://www.sr1hdremaster.com/, which I assume is the same one MrFroz was referring to. It takes a little bit of work to get it set up, make sure to read the readme, but it works extremely well. There's only so much you can do with the controls, they're a product of their time, but it still feels very smooth compared to what you get from the GOG versions of the game. I only played a few hours into it until I got distracted by some other shiny thing, but it looks and feels amazingly. At this point in time, it's definitely the best way to play the game. And it wasn't a complete ass-ache to get my wireless 360 controller working with it, and remapped to my liking. Keep in mind you will need to get a version of the Dreamcast game, it won't work with the Gog or Steam releases; but that's up to you.

Just Started Monster Hunter World

Took a long break from it but resuming my all-dungeons run of Elden Ring.  Got to Leyndell last not and absolutely hate that they got rid of the wall skip right near the entrance.

I just finished the original Alone in the Dark. I discovered that game during the early 90s through my uncle. I had already played Resident Evil back then, so the graphics were not very impressive in comparison; however, I kept thinking about it, there is something about the art style that got ingrained on my mind. In highschool I got interested in playing through old MsDOS games and tried to give it another shot, but could not get very far and lost interest.

I finally beat it last Wednesday after an impulsive buy on GOG. The game is super short and quite easy for the most part, but it is well worth playing if you are interested on the history of the survival horror genre. It is crazy to think how many elements we take from granted were already present on the first game. From the puzzle solving, the tank controls, the de-enfasis on combat and the investigative role the player takes while learning the backstory of the Manor.

I have not heard very good things about the sequel, but may give the third game a try considering that i love the weird west setting.

Additionally, I just beat another childhood game. On saturday I finished playing through Little Big Adventure (Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure). I used to have it on PSX as a child, but could never get very far. I did not know english back then so I was never sure what I had to do next, but had fun running around the main town and coming up with stories with my cousin about the world and its settings. The game was designed by the same guy as Alone in the Dark and it keeps some of the gameplay elements, but on a platform / action adventure context. Kind of reminds me of Beyond Good and Evil.

I had bought the game from GOG but never got around to play it. A couple of weeks ago i realized it had received an update and gave it another try. I have mixed feelings about LBA. While the setting is charming and i love the art style, this game is hard as balls for the wrong reasons. It is very easy to get stun lock to death by enemies, the combat system is too stiff and the save system does not contribute to make this any easier. I almost quit on the assault to the HQ on Principal Island due to the SuperGro Fight.  

On the other hand, the exploration, the little puzzles and the overall story are great and really had me looking forward for the next scenarios.

Immediately after finishing it, i got the sequel. It is much more refined, has much better graphics and plays smoother albeit it might have too many fetch quests and relies too much on having to save money for mandatory items. I just got the third magic upgraded and arrived to Emerald Moon, I am loving this game so far.
 

On 3/12/2023 at 4:34 AM, Insaneprophet said:

I always wanted to play Soul Reaver. I was/am huge into the Tomb Raider franchise with the first 3 being my absolute favorites. At the time they came out Doom was the only thing that I felt had that level of immersion. Well my friend had Soul Reaver for PS and it looked like just a cooler Tomb Raider type game with some added cool mechanix. He wasnt that into it and I only got to play a little bit into it because we were young and too busy partying. I kinda forgot all about it till I ran across it on an emulation station I picked up a couple of years ago but I was never able to get the controller settings to work properly and the game itself was too janky to play on that system. I really would like to get it running on my PC finally. Thanks for reminding me about it.

It is well worth playing it.  While the combat is kind of boring, i really dig the exploration. Lots of little optional dungeons and hidden nooks and crannies. The art style is amazing. 

Escape from tarkov

Made the soundpack myself, surprised nobody else did it already tbh.

I've been stuck on the final Bowser fight in Super Mario World (Super Mario Advance 2) for an embarassingly long time.

Saw a few classic Thief mentions in here, and I'm a Thief lover of some ardour. I remember years ago there was a pretty lively mapping (or Fan Mission by their lingo) scene. Anyone played any standout custom content for them? Harder to eclipse the base game than Doom IMO, but I suspect in any long running game community pre budget gigantitis, the community creations are reaching far above the originals they're building on. 

I was playing a bit of SOMA rweecently, atmospheric and enjoyable if mechanically a bit bereft as ever with Frictional games, but the plot was compelling -- as ever with Frictional games.  But then my laptop GPU died.

YOU BEST BET I'M CRANKIN THAT REZZ-E FOUR BABY!!

I have finished SOMA yesterday and in my opinion, this is a good game. Not especially for his gameplay, but for the storyline, the background and the philosophical message about transhumanism. I think I will play this game a second time.

On 3/6/2023 at 12:30 PM, Lila Feuer said:

An extremely overdue completion of Diablo II LoD (started with a Barbarian in 2011 and stopped before Diablo and just recently beat it with an Amazon) and now going through it again on Nightmare. I've died like 20 times. Glad your corpse is teleported back to town when you exit and reenter because sometimes you just run right into an elite mob the moment you enter indoors and have no time to react. That said I'm having a total blast and almost cleared Act 1 in a couple days, just imbued a superior ceremonial javelin with the malus and rolling along pretty well at level 45.

Finished Nightmare at level 73, Baal was a complete pushover, as was his minions. The 350% damage to demons bonus I'm enjoying as of recent is trivializing the majority of the game's cast. I'm reaching level 75 before moving onto Hell. I'm not looking forward to the severe reduction in resistances.

Super Metroid and Prime 2. I'm currently going through the Metroid series as I just beaten Prime 1 (which was phenomenal game and probably one of my favourite games of all time)

Act 2 on Hell difficulty in Diablo II is so fucking bipolar, most outdoor areas are a breeze due to significantly less dangerous enemies from Act 1, but indoors via the tombs the mummies are so much worse than before. I only just now got access to the palace after the grueling venture that was the head of the staff in the claw viper temple, which might I add was made infinitely worse because of the goddamn MUMMIES, not the serpents themselves.

6 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

Act 2 on Hell difficulty in Diablo II is so fucking bipolar, most outdoor areas are a breeze due to significantly less dangerous enemies from Act 1, but indoors via the tombs the mummies are so much worse than before. I only just now got access to the palace after the grueling venture that was the head of the staff in the claw viper temple, which might I add was made infinitely worse because of the goddamn MUMMIES, not the serpents themselves.

I feel you. I just do not understand why people revere Diablo II to this day, given how tedious and frustrating the game is. If I had not already sworn off Blizzard after learning about all their disgusting practices, I would be rather worried of Diablo IV drawing so much inspiration from it.

@Rudolph I think it's a great game, it's an excellent sequel, but I like the first game more in other departments even if the gameplay is scaled back significantly. Blizzard had the least involvement in it and it shows, meanwhile Act 5 from the expansion almost feels like a different game tonally. I just blew through the true tomb of Tal Rasha by locating the exit ASAP and killing Duriel to get out of Act 2. Good thing you never lose the Horadric Cube when you finish the game the first time because I couldn't get past the first room of the Halls of the Dead due to serious elite mob bullshittery. Things should be a lot better from hereon out, at least until I get to the Ancients in Act 5, which are worse than Baal himself.

On 4/6/2023 at 10:25 PM, Lila Feuer said:

I think it's a great game, it's an excellent sequel

Well, your previous post did not make it like you were enjoying yourself.

I recently gave up on Resident Evil Remake myself because I had enough of playing a zombie game where your character does not know how to aim for the head. There is still a lot to love about the game, but I am at a point in my life where my tolerance for bullshit has grown thin.

I got a PS5 pretty much to play Dragons Crown Pro at 4k60.

Dragons Crown is the only "loot" orientated ARPG I like at all... but I absolutely adore it. I called Diablo 3 barely or dubiously a videogame, whilst this is *the* videogame. The gameplay model makes all the difference in the world, I find it hard to identify with the isometric approach utilised by the Diablo-esque games but a good brawler I can practically play forever. Used to play with my friend on the PS3 for hours when he came round. Pretty much hoping to start that up again. The remastered soundtrack on a soundbar is also a great add to the experience. 

On 4/5/2023 at 7:12 AM, Lila Feuer said:

Act 2 on Hell difficulty in Diablo II is so fucking bipolar, most outdoor areas are a breeze due to significantly less dangerous enemies from Act 1, but indoors via the tombs the mummies are so much worse than before. I only just now got access to the palace after the grueling venture that was the head of the staff in the claw viper temple, which might I add was made infinitely worse because of the goddamn MUMMIES, not the serpents themselves.

You D2 and PoE bros keep pulling me back. I want to go through as a Pally again now, it’s half of my favorite pair of 90s RPGs. I’m also with you about Act 5.

Also, @scalliano reminded me that I bought that game awhile ago and I have now put several hours into it. Those time trials really spike the difficulty for those golds, though..!

I’ve also been enjoying a truly devious and evil game:

3 hours ago, BGreener said:

You D2 and PoE bros keep pulling me back. I want to go through as a Pally again now, it’s half of my favorite pair of 90s RPGs. I’m also with you about Act 5.

 

Also, @scalliano reminded me that I bought that game awhile ago and I have now put several hours into it. Those time trials really spike the difficulty for those golds, though..!

 

I’ve also been enjoying a truly devious and evil game:

 

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A Hat in Time!

 

How do you like it so far? It is one of my favorite platformers in recent years. I played it a little bit after Mario Odyssey and found it much better.

20 minutes ago, Garlichead said:

How do you like it so far? It is one of my favorite platformers in recent years. I played it a little bit after Mario Odyssey and found it much better.

I’d like to say that I’m stunned by it. The charm levels are through the roof, it’s got an edge to the humor that reminds me of Psychonauts, great music, great levels, fun bosses. Very warming, can’t say enough good things about it, my b.

I quite liked Psychonauts. However, I recently tried giving Yooka-Laylee a shot and I ended up rage-quitting after a while: maybe I no longer have the reflexes for that type of games, but the Rampo boss fight took me so many attempts and I was kind of done with the game after it.

I've been playing a little bit of Dragon's Dogma, it definitely deserves the positive cult classic status it has.

My favourite feature so far is the dumb ability to pick up and throw enemies:

Im on a coop kick right now. Games that require teamwork dont interest me, but Im being dragged around by my friend group and it just so happens theyve got decent taste for games.

Barotrama

Deep Rock Galactic

Sons of the Forest

Valheim

Vermintide 2

13 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

I've been playing a little bit of Dragon's Dogma, it definitely deserves the positive cult classic status it has.

My favourite feature so far is the dumb ability to pick up and throw enemies:

 

Best game :D

Since I've upgraded my PC and OS from WinXP to 11 and having had to re-buy my entire steam library, I once again sat down with Serious Sam Classics: Revolution. Ater all, the only of the two classic games I've finished was the second one, so this was a good opportunity to clear that one too. A few thoughts on the two games and the Bright Island bonus campaign:

• TFE just seems all around more slick and polished. I dig the ancient egypt scenery and it's less cluttered visuals a lot more. There are less big fights on the whole but they are lots of fun and there is no serious(ha!) dip in quality to be found anywhere. It's also much, much newer to me than TSE, so that might help it's standing with me, too.
• The Double-Barrel Shotgun is hideously bad. It doesn't seem to handle it's spread like the legendarily powerful Doom DBS in that if you kill an enemy with it, they just soak up all the pellets like a greedy, asshole-ish sponge. The reload is ridiculously long too. Fixing either of the two would improve the weapon tenfold and give it an actual niche.
• If you intend on starting these, then don't be stupid like me and set your weapon keys to the Numpad. The numbers above the letters aren't too hot for this and scrolling with the mouse-wheel takes ages to get to the weapon you actually want. I only started doing this very late on and immediately noticed being less stressed out when overrun with foes.
• Returning to TSE, I have to say the babylonian episode kinda stinks at parts. Elephant Atrium and Tower of Bable were much better in my memory than when I replayed them this time. Throughout the episode, trees and shrubbery might end up being the biggest overall threat. I even ended up cutting down trees preemptively in areas that were soon to be populated just to have a clear line of sight. Not entirely bad but central america and europe were much more fleshed out and exciting IMO.
• I still have no clue on how to beat the bouncy section in The Grand Cathedral without save-scumming the hell out of it or without copious serious bomb usage. By far the toughest part of the level.
• I like some of the sort-of returning and new enemies in Bright Island. They also nicely spice up the non-BI levels if you play in Co-Op mode with the setting to spawn them active. The Beheaded Commando sucks, though. He's easy to overlook and it feels weird to have such a little, puny guy have so much damn health.
• Overall, the difficulty of Bright Island is all over the place. It's overall perhaps a little easier than the original campaigns but throws in some really difficult fights out of nowhere. Still enjoyable and I enjoyed the new sights and sounds. Even the very rough looking second-to-last map has a certain appeal to it.
• The extra weapons feel very underwhelming and not very powerful at all. I mostly ignored the minelayer, but it seems like something fun to strategize with for returning playthroughs on higher difficulties. I didn't use the XL4-P all that much since I wanted to save the ammo for the regular laser gun, instead. I did use the alt-fire of the plasmathrower quite a bit, however. The single target damage is pretty great.
• I had to cheese the consecutive final bosses of BI by hiding behind the surrounding pillars like a little bitch. I shudder to think trying to solve that fight legitimately and avoiding the barrages of stuff thrown at me all at once without getting hit too much. Hats off to whoever can do that.
• The general lack of very pronounced stylization in the classic SS games feel quite refreshing in the modern age. There's something almost cozy to the fairly realistic landscapes and overall tone of the graphics.
• I'm somewhat saddened to see Seriouszone in it's old form gone. That was my very first experience with downloading user created content, a good six or so years before getting into classic Doom. I'm glad they kept a file archive up and running to preserve all this content. It's also nice to see that the steam workshop seems fairly alive.