The Gaming Thread

[Allentown]

Played through Doom 2016 on easy mode, with the intent to play through the various difficulties. Probably should have started on normal, because after beating it I just don't really feel like playing it any more.

[hsilman]

Is God of War worth a play through? Or worth waiting to get on sale?

I'm picked up Horizon Zero Dawn on sale a while back. I think I'm about half way through it, but I'm just not getting into it. It's hard to go from AC: Valhalla with an engaging plot and where you can fluidly leap, run climb, and generally just not get stuck to something like HZD.

I picked up Cyberpunk at the same time and haven't played it yet. Maybe I'll give that a go instead.

Well since you've bought AC, and HZD, you'll probably like GoW.

Everything's worth waiting to get on sale. You just listed 100+ hours of game that you have to play through, why not do that and then see how much GoW is then?

[dw]

Elden Ring reviews are off the charts.

[aurelius]

Is God of War worth a play through? Or worth waiting to get on sale?

I'm picked up Horizon Zero Dawn on sale a while back. I think I'm about half way through it, but I'm just not getting into it. It's hard to go from AC: Valhalla with an engaging plot and where you can fluidly leap, run climb, and generally just not get stuck to something like HZD.

I picked up Cyberpunk at the same time and haven't played it yet. Maybe I'll give that a go instead.

With both HZD and Cyberpunk you can suffer from task overload quickly.

HZD can be an open world grind. Prioritize story missions, hunter challenges and hunter missions for (best weapons). HZD has a very unique background and the story gets cool (do you know why metal robots roam the world yet?).

I suggest on Cyberpunk to slow play the introduction and do all of the gigs available before doing story missions. It will help you get the 'feel' of night city and the mercenary life. If not, you quickly get overwhelmed with story missions, gigs, and side missions. Also, you will do a lot of crisscrossing the city. use the fast travel system.

[JonA]

HZD can be an open world grind. Prioritize story missions, hunter challenges and hunter missions for (best weapons). HZD has a very unique background and the story gets cool (do you know why metal robots roam the world yet?).

In the end, that's what I did, and decided it was alright in the end. I ignored pretty much any side quest an just streamlined the main quests. Although I found the story much more engaging when I re-imagined it with my own "Jar Jar Binks is a Sith Lord" theory that Elizabet Sorbeck is actually psychopathic murderer intent on recreating the world in her own image. That fixes a number of plot holes.

[Allentown]

Started Darkest Dungeon. Added a few mods to make it more friendly to my time (easier), specifically removed the negatives from trinkets and added a third trinket. I figure my stun character getting an extra 10% stun chance without whatever drawback it might have come with is good but not game-breaking.

[aurelius]

For Souls enthusiasts: Elden Ring lives up to the hype.

[Allentown]

Remake of RE2 & RE3 were on sale, so I picked them up. I might have played through 2 at some point, but I don't think I ever played 3.
RE2 remake is fantastic. Again not sure how it fares for fans of the original, but I'm having more fun with it so far than probably any other game in recent memory.

[sklunk]

Played through Doom 2016 on easy mode, with the intent to play through the various difficulties. Probably should have started on normal, because after beating it I just don't really feel like playing it any more.

2016 is great, among the best FPS I’ve played. Did you try the arcade mode? I definitely spent a lot more time on that than the campaign.

[Allentown]

2016 is great, among the best FPS I’ve played. Did you try the arcade mode? I definitely spent a lot more time on that than the campaign.

Couldn't get into Arcade mode. Granted I only tried once.

[JonA]

For Souls enthusiasts: Elden Ring lives up to the hype.

So I decided after all the reviews that Elden Ring was next for me. But I had picked up Dark Souls 3 a couple of years ago on a steam sale, so I decided I should really try that first and make sure that it was my cup of tea. I felt like I had kinda moved on from the frustratingly difficult games.

Turns out, I git gud.

I tried a couple of different starting builds trying to kill the first tutorial boss, but finally settled on a dex build, ultimately wielding the Uchigatana. After the tutorial boss (which took an embarassing long time), I pretty much breezed through the rest of the game, although I struggled a little with Two Princes and a whole lot with the NameLess king.

I thought I was going completionist on it, but it turns out I missed the whole summoning thing, the whole covenant thing, and pretty much every NPC side quest and every NPC vendor outside of the regular one. So pretty much the entire plot. I'll probably play though a second time with the same build or maybe replay with a new one and see what the plot actually is.

[aurelius]

Play through Jedi: Fallen Order for the third time. Best Star Wars story told in the last 20 years. Game wise: a hybrid metroidvania/souls-lite. Highly recommend. Especially now that they are introducing characters and places as canon.

[aurelius]

For Souls enthusiasts: Elden Ring lives up to the hype.

So I decided after all the reviews that Elden Ring was next for me. But I had picked up Dark Souls 3 a couple of years ago on a steam sale, so I decided I should really try that first and make sure that it was my cup of tea. I felt like I had kinda moved on from the frustratingly difficult games.

Turns out, I git gud.

I love to read these stories. Almost every souls player has a similar story with their first souls game.

Git gud is not some troll response. It is an ethos. Very few gaming experiences are as rewarding as the souls games.

Dark Souls is still my favorite. The world design is brilliant (feels open world, no hub, interconnected) and story exceeds the others.

[Allentown]

Finished RE2 as Leon, playing now as Claire. Going to do a NG+ probably with both characters right after that.
Besides the Tales games, I don't think I've done NG+ with anything since I built my PC. Makes me pretty excited for RE4, provided they leave the substance intact. I could use QoL updates, and perhaps tone down the QTE, but otherwise I feel like any other changes would be a negative. Game was basically perfect.

[ChasingCurls69]

Finished RE2 as Leon, playing now as Claire. Going to do a NG+ probably with both characters right after that.
Besides the Tales games, I don't think I've done NG+ with anything since I built my PC. Makes me pretty excited for RE4, provided they leave the substance intact. I could use QoL updates, and perhaps tone down the QTE, but otherwise I feel like any other changes would be a negative. Game was basically perfect.

Did the PC version get the same update as the console versions? I was thinking of replaying it for the PS5 upgrades.

[Allentown]

Finished RE2 as Leon, playing now as Claire. Going to do a NG+ probably with both characters right after that.
Besides the Tales games, I don't think I've done NG+ with anything since I built my PC. Makes me pretty excited for RE4, provided they leave the substance intact. I could use QoL updates, and perhaps tone down the QTE, but otherwise I feel like any other changes would be a negative. Game was basically perfect.

Did the PC version get the same update as the console versions? I was thinking of replaying it for the PS5 upgrades.

The update last week or so, with ray tracing? If so, yes.

[JonA]

Dark Souls is still my favorite. The world design is brilliant (feels open world, no hub, interconnected) and story exceeds the others.

I played through it a again as a sorcerer and agree with you. It reminds me a lot of the original Diablo and gave me much the same feelings playing through it. Lots of vague subtle hints to pique your curiosity; suspense and anxiety every time you walk into a new unfamiliar area. It was cool to recognize how all the levels actually did fit together on the second playthrough. The first time through, it felt like randomly teleporting to isolated locations.

I actually think the difficulty of it is a bit overrated. The thing I originally struggled with was the idea that "dodging" wasn't about, you know, making the other guy miss, rather than activating some weird invincibility mid roll that makes everything magically go through you. Once I figured that out, it wasn't too bad.

Playing as a sorcerer, though, was pretty damn easy. The only difficulties were due to immersion breaking things like a target locking controls which are completely worthless but required to use ranged magic. ("What's that? The enemy hasn't detected you yet so you can't target lock? Oh, and you tried to target lock anyway? Here, let me turn you around 180 degrees. Uh-oh, _now_ the enemy has detected you. That's too bad, the halberd to the small of the back has got to hurt!"). Despite that, I killed the Soul of Cinder without even getting hit.

[quikky]

For Souls enthusiasts: Elden Ring lives up to the hype.

So I decided after all the reviews that Elden Ring was next for me. But I had picked up Dark Souls 3 a couple of years ago on a steam sale, so I decided I should really try that first and make sure that it was my cup of tea. I felt like I had kinda moved on from the frustratingly difficult games.

Turns out, I git gud.

I love to read these stories. Almost every souls player has a similar story with their first souls game.

Git gud is not some troll response. It is an ethos. Very few gaming experiences are as rewarding as the souls games.

Dark Souls is still my favorite. The world design is brilliant (feels open world, no hub, interconnected) and story exceeds the others.

After having finished Elden Ring, I also like DS3 better. Maybe it is because DS felt more novel, but it just felt more cohesive and I felt the bosses were more unique, on average.

Anyone played the Nioh series? From the reviews it appears very DS-like.

[aurelius]

I played through it a again as a sorcerer and agree with you. It reminds me a lot of the original Diablo and gave me much the same feelings playing through it. Lots of vague subtle hints to pique your curiosity; suspense and anxiety every time you walk into a new unfamiliar area. It was cool to recognize how all the levels actually did fit together on the second playthrough. The first time through, it felt like randomly teleporting to isolated locations.

The level design was genius. Everything tied together and fit the narrative. Essentially you are running around the afterlife with Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, the Abyss. Great story if you dig into it.

After having finished Elden Ring, I also like DS3 better. Maybe it is because DS felt more novel, but it just felt more cohesive and I felt the bosses were more unique, on average.

Anyone played the Nioh series? From the reviews it appears very DS-like.

The first Dark Souls game is always the hardest. They get 'easy' after you finish one. You learn the game. Accept that you will die but know you have the tools to move forward. Demon Souls is the easiest as it has the most 'gimmicky' bosses. Dark Souls is next easiest. But you can go lightening build (lightening weapons were OP compared to everything else), pyro build, or magic and 'cheese' the game. I thought DS2 was harder than DS3 (not including the downloadable/optional content). Bloodborne is its own animal as it forces aggression to be successful.

IMO, Elden Ring bosses are much more aggressive than a lot of Souls bosses. There were a lot less breaks in pattern to drink Estus flasks. Often bosses would punish you for trying to take a breather. That took some getting used to for me. I learned to stay in the pocket with them. But if a boss just pissed me off I could use a ghost summon to aggro them. So variable difficulty?

Nioh is like a cross between a loot game, old school actioner, and Dark Souls. Just didn't have the same hook for me.

[Allentown]

Horizon Zero Dawn is cool, I like the story but the gameplay isn't really hooking me.