What video game are you playing?

[ACamp1900]

Played Nightmare on Elm Street nes with my youngest the other day,… such a shat on game but pretty damn fun to this day…

 

[Armyirish47]

Played some Pokemon Unite last night to get it set up for my son, not a bad little game, but the rewards system has to be the dumbest thing I've seen in a while.

 

[IrishLion]

Played some Pokemon Unite last night to get it set up for my son, not a bad little game, but the rewards system has to be the dumbest thing I've seen in a while.

I was reading about that this morning, seems to be getting good reviews as an easy-to-pick-up MOBA. Matches being a consistent 10 minutes is a big draw too... may have to download it and give it a whirl lol

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I was reading about that this morning, seems to be getting good reviews as an easy-to-pick-up MOBA. Matches being a consistent 10 minutes is a big draw too... may have to download it and give it a whirl lol

I hope that's the case. MOBA is a cool genre that is super punishing to learn most of the time.

 

[Armyirish47]

I was reading about that this morning, seems to be getting good reviews as an easy-to-pick-up MOBA. Matches being a consistent 10 minutes is a big draw too... may have to download it and give it a whirl lol

Very easy to pickup, there are some small mechanics you can use if you want but basically it automatically attacks the nearest person and you have like 3 other buttons to use. The 10 minute time limit is awesome too.

Hopefully it leads to some MOBA expansion so we can get some momentum in League of Legends in a few years with the youths.

 

[IrishLion]

I've been playing Spider-Man on PS4... this game might be the thing that pushes me to get a PS5. I'd love to play Miles Morales with next-gen specs taking advantage of my 4K tv better than my base PS4 does.

Unbelievable how well they executed the complicated mechanics of web-slinging and traversing the environment, especially with the different options it gives you to sift through at high rates of speed while figuring out the best way to navigate the city.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

So here's some background on this video:

• First, it's very NSFW. Nothing sexual, but graphic violence (it's MK11, duh) and profanity.
• Foxy Grandpa is one of the best MK11 players in the world. His Twitch channel is usually good for a laugh, because some of the people he plays get big mad.
• On that subject, the Indian guy he beats here (Shiva player) loses his shit, which results in one of the funniest things I've ever seen on YouTube.

 

[TorontoGold]

So here's some background on this video:

• First, it's very NSFW. Nothing sexual, but graphic violence (it's MK11, duh) and profanity.
• Foxy Grandpa is one of the best MK11 players in the world. His Twitch channel is usually good for a laugh, because some of the people he plays get big mad.
• On that subject, the Indian guy he beats here (Shiva player) loses his shit, which results in one of the funniest things I've ever seen on YouTube.

Whiskey, you play Escape from Tarkov? Requires more brain cells than your typical shooter, so I figured it might be up your alley.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Whiskey, you play Escape from Tarkov? Requires more brain cells than your typical shooter, so I figured it might be up your alley.

I've watched a good amount of it on Twitch, but I haven't had a gaming rig in years. These days I'm limited to a beat-up old PS4 and a Switch.

 

[IrishLion]

I've watched a good amount of it on Twitch, but I haven't had a gaming rig in years. These days I'm limited to a beat-up old PS4 and a Switch.

She sounds like a jet engine… but she gets the job done

 

[NorthDakota]

I've watched a good amount of it on Twitch, but I haven't had a gaming rig in years. These days I'm limited to a beat-up old PS4 and a Switch.

Whiskey i will send you my rig. It still plays games and I'm not bringing it back to school. And after the Bar I plan on building a new one anyway.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

I've watched a good amount of it on Twitch, but I haven't had a gaming rig in years. These days I'm limited to a beat-up old PS4 and a Switch.

Im messing around with building gaming pcs. I can hook you up with a liquid cooled rig for about $25k. Sound good?

 

[Whiskeyjack]

Im messing around with building gaming pcs. I can hook you up with a liquid cooled rig for about $25k. Sound good?

 

[Irish#1]

Picked this up at an auction. Brand New. Heavy duty joy sticks and roller ball. Has USB and HDMI ports so you can download additional games. Not sure how many games it comes with, but I think it's over 100.

 

[ulukinatme]

Picked this up at an auction. Brand New. Heavy duty joy sticks and roller ball. Has USB and HDMI ports so you can download additional games. Not sure how many games it comes with, but I think it's over 100.

Very cool! For awhile I was thinking about porting my RetroPie build into an arcade machine, but I've still got a big PlayChoice 10 sitting in the garage that doesn't get enough love. There's just something awesome about having an arcade machine with a ton of games on it. It's a nice addition to a game room, or at the very least a conversation piece.
Seems kinda odd they'd put Lion King and Aladdin on the front there. I don't really think of either game when it comes to "legends" or anything. Just an odd marketing choice I guess!

 

[ulukinatme]

Played through Tales of Berseria recently. I'd heard the "Tales" series has gotten rather popular in recent years, but I haven't played any of them since the early PSX days. Tales of Arise just came out and has been doing very well on Steam, but I'm a cheapskate with a limited gaming budget these days so I picked up Berseria instead when it was on sale. Action RPGs aren't my favorite thing, but this one didn't rub me the wrong way. I thought it handled combat better than FF7 Remake with less button mashing. The combos and specials are more fluid, and your party members tend to be more passively useful than FF7R's party members. Overall combat was good, and if you want to take a time out you can set it to Auto and let them fight for you (Although it won't be as efficient).

The story and characters are what make this title though. When characters expound on the plot there are short little anime scenes of the characters interacting which can be both entertaining and amusing. There's some good camaraderie there, reminds me a bit of Dragon Quest XI's party but Berseria has more misfits. There's a good mix of both lighthearted characters and serious foils. The voice acting was pretty good. They do a great job building up the antagonists and there are some good plot twists to keep things interesting (Although a few you can see coming a mile away). If you enjoy a game where perspective is everything and makes you question who is right and who is wrong, this game will certainly leave you guessing.

If I have one piece of advice on this one it's "turn down the difficulty if you plan to grind." I spent most of the game on Hard mode, which was fine and not terribly awful (There's more challenging modes) but with that you also get less xp per fight. Near the end I started struggling a bit as some boss fights were taking several minutes and left me burning through items that I wasn't needing to use previously. If you feel the need to grind to catch up you're better off turning the difficulty down a bit to speed up the process. You get more money per fight on harder difficulties, but anywhere from 20-60% more base xp if you turn the difficulty down for a bit during grinding.

Really enjoyed it, I plan on checking out Tales of Arise once the price drops. It's been awhile since I've enjoyed a game enough to beat it, probably a couple years now. I'd give it a solid "B" grade overall, and Steam reviews are still Very Positive.

 

[Irishokie]

What’s your opinion on the FF7 remake? No spoilers, please. Is it a more action RPG or does it have any of the lust of those JRPGs from the wonderful turn-based PS1 days?

 

[ACamp1900]

Anyone have luck with the ps5 or series x???

 

[ulukinatme]

What’s your opinion on the FF7 remake? No spoilers, please. Is it a more action RPG or does it have any of the lust of those JRPGs from the wonderful turn-based PS1 days?

I did a write up awhile back on it here somewhere. In short, if you were a fan of the original it can be a mixed bag. Some people like that Action style new combat like Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy XV (Haven't played it yet, but have been told it's similar).

Personally I was hoping for a true turn based option to mirror the original combat, and what we got was a watered down version that had the same difficulty as the game's Easy Mode. In short, "Classic Mode" is rather boring with the difficulty turned down and a bit of a slap in the face to longtime fans that have been waiting for this for decades. I find the new combat to be far too button mashy, and all the Gen Z'ers love it because a game where you mash Square 10,000 times a fight is enough to hold their attention. Get off my lawn! But seriously, I don't see the appeal and I would have been fine with it if we could have had a Hard mode option with true turn based combat like the original.

Beyond that the combat can be buggy too. For instance, after you've mashed Square enough times to build up ATB you can fire off an ability or spell. However if a monster manages to hit you precisely between the time that you've selected the ability and the time it actually fires off, the ability will fail and you lose the ATB. That makes zero sense. If the ability didn't fire, then ATB shouldn't be used up. This can be super frustrating on Hard in tougher boss fights as you might be trying to fire off a heal only to get nothing.

Combat aside the game does some things very well. Even on PS4 the graphics are gorgeous. There are parts where I'm literally stunned, like walking across a high beam with the slums sprawling half a mile below me...the nerve endings got tingly. The music is beautiful, it's every bit as good as the original and more so with the tech upgrades. The voice acting was very well done, absolutely love all the main cast and side characters. That's about all the positives for me.

​​​​​​The developers claim they've broken the original story up into installments is so they could "tell the full story they couldn't before." That's pretty much a sham. They stuffed the Remake full of fetch quests to eat up time and a lot of back and forth retracing steps. There is very little additional plot that contributes to the overall story, and even less of that I'd call redeeming. I won't spoil which parts fall into those categories, but bottom line we were sold a false bill of goods. It's painfully obvious the purpose of breaking the game up like this was to milk fans for a good $300 when all is said and done. They haven't said how many installments it will take to finish the story, and yet the Remake doesn't really get very far and they've said the next installment could be even shorter. Ouch. So many in the industry expect this project could take several years to complete. I think it's got too much unnecessary fluff personally and they would have been better off keeping it to 2 parts maximum.

I could go on, but you get the idea. I think it's still a decent game on it's own, but as a long time fan I was clearly disappointed with some parts of it. I will say there were some head scratching plot changes that weren't welcome, and some have really hurt the story both in the current game as well as for future installments. One plot device in particular can go to hell.

If you're looking for an old school turn based JRPG, I highly suggest Dragon Quest XI. With that one Square Enix kept the original style and incorporated optional draconian challenges to make it harder if you want. The plot and characters are wonderful. Some say it starts slow as the world and cast are introduced, but by Act 2 things really open up. There's a whole "Post Game" too, but to be honest it's really a final Act of it's own as it ties up loose ends and more. I've played the game 3 times now between the base game and completing draconian challenges, I enjoyed it that much. If you play the Definitive Version there's even some optional side stuff, like a trip back in time to older Dragon Quest games. It actually got me to seek some of them out to play the ones I missed. This video is worth a watch if you're interested, it's a good expose and humorous take on the game without spoiling anything:

 

[DONTH8]

I did a write up awhile back on it here somewhere. In short, if you were a fan of the original it can be a mixed bag. Some people like that Action style new combat like Kingdom Hearts III and...

I dont want to quote the whole thing again, but I echo what this man says. FFVII Remake was a game that did a good job fleshing out some characters like Jesse, Wade, Boggs and made the world a lot more in depth. The sector 7 slums, for example, is alive with lots of people that you meet and get to know. Making the destruction of the plate that much more meaningful since the build up for it is basically 80% of the game. But how they create that build up is boring side quests that are really soul-less, and story lines that aren't nearly as intriguing as the original game's were. The original for example you think you are taking on SHINRA a corporation that is draining the planet of its life. Then at the very end of disc 1 PSYCH it's actually this white hair dude with a freaking 10 ft long sword, have fun in the next 2 discs figuring out how to take both on. The story this time around is not nearly as enjoyable and drags a lot. you almost forget the plot sometimes.

And I just want to add that DQXI was an awesome jrpg that was recommended by the board that I have played a couple times as well now. Definitely worth a shot if you are into the genre. But the best Jrpg that I have played in a long time was actually Persona 5 Royal. Also turned based and I highly recommend it to anyone.

 

[ulukinatme]

I dont want to quote the whole thing again, but I echo what this man says. FFVII Remake was a game that did a good job fleshing out some characters like Jesse, Wade, Boggs and made the world a lot more in depth. The sector 7 slums, for example, is alive with lots of people that you meet and get to know. Making the destruction of the plate that much more meaningful since the build up for it is basically 80% of the game. But how they create that build up is boring side quests that are really soul-less, and story lines that aren't nearly as intriguing as the original game's were. The original for example you think you are taking on SHINRA a corporation that is draining the planet of its life. Then at the very end of disc 1 PSYCH it's actually this white hair dude with a freaking 10 ft long sword, have fun in the next 2 discs figuring out how to take both on. The story this time around is not nearly as enjoyable and drags a lot. you almost forget the plot sometimes.

And I just want to add that DQXI was an awesome jrpg that was recommended by the board that I have played a couple times as well now. Definitely worth a shot if you are into the genre. But the best Jrpg that I have played in a long time was actually Persona 5 Royal. Also turned based and I highly recommend it to anyone.

I've got Persona 4 on my Steam wishlist, I'm planning on getting it the next time it's on sale. Persona 5 doesn't appear to be on Steam sadly and I'd rather not get it for console as my PS4 got damaged a bit by my son. Hopefully it gets ported to PC at some point.

 

[DONTH8]

I've got Persona 4 on my Steam wishlist, I'm planning on getting it the next time it's on sale. Persona 5 doesn't appear to be on Steam sadly and I'd rather not get it for console as my PS4 got damaged a bit by my son. Hopefully it gets ported to PC at some point.

I never played a Persona game before 5 (they aren't connected to one another so that is a good thing) and I don't want to look up the story of other games because 5's was incredible to experience. But I have read that 4 Golden was an absolute banger of a game that has been highly recommended by most everyone even after paying 5.

 

[ulukinatme]

After finishing Tales of Berseria I picked up a fresh out of Early Access crafting/survival game called Medieval Dynasty. I've been picking up a number of survival games over the years, and I'm only 20 hours in but I'm just not sure it's that polished yet. The reviews are still very good, but there are some survival games still in Early Access that feel stronger than this. I don't think it's a bad game, just feels like something may be missing. Maybe it's because survival crafting games seem to work better when there's an MMO component and this game is single player, I don't know.

To get around the MMO component the game has built in AI. You can meet various "travelers" around camp fires in NPC towns. You can recruit them to your budding village and give them tasks to do, like collecting logs and chopping firewood, or taking care of lifestock, or farming, or producing goods like wicker baskets, etc. You can find a wife, get married, have a child, and presumably at some point you bite the dust and you take over as your child to continue the dynasty (I haven't gotten that far yet). You unlock technologies by crafting various low level items or performing tasks like clearing a field for farming. This gives you xp for different "tech" trees, and then you can spend real life coins to get schematics for things like buckets, tables, copper tools, etc.

There's a bit of a learning curve, but not too bad. I started building a few houses and recruiting minions after my first year, but I wasn't quite prepared and one left during the first season. They left because I didn't manage to build a Food Storage building so they didn't know where to get food from even though I had them assigned as a Hunter lol. Once you have Food and Resource buildings built any goods that your workers collect get stored there, and the others can take items out as needed like firewood or water buckets. Making sure your resource needs are met means keeping your minions' Moods up.

There are radiant quests and a main storyline, but overall the NPCs not tied to the main story feel a bit lifeless. Lots of scripted responses that overlap across NPCs and they repeat. Think Skyrim, but less unique NPCs. That's probably my main beef with the game. The NPCs all have their own duties, chores, and daily routines that they follow, but when you talk to them it often feels robotic. Not a bad game, especially considering the developer Render Cube doesn't have any other games out on Steam. I've played some other medieval survival games like Life is Feudal (That one has it's own caveats, like the random flux combinations...UGH) and to a lesser extent Banished which is more of a sim. This game feels a bit better in ways than both of those, but still not nearly as solid as a game like 7 Days to Die (Which is a survival/crafting game but in a different genre).

If you enjoy these types of games I'd say wait for a sale to check it out. Best advice I can give is try to get buildings up fast so you can bring in some workers to help automate some chores. A dedicated hunter will bring in lots of meat you don't have to spend your coins on and will keep you fed each day, and all it costs is a stone knife once a Hunting Shack is made. Once you have a Workshop early on you can turn sticks or planks from a Woodshed into buckets and wicker baskets for easy cash. Save some cash to buy a horse early, it'll make traversing between towns for quests much easier.

 

[Irish#1]

Very cool! For awhile I was thinking about porting my RetroPie build into an arcade machine, but I've still got a big PlayChoice 10 sitting in the garage that doesn't get enough love. There's just something awesome about having an arcade machine with a ton of games on it. It's a nice addition to a game room, or at the very least a conversation piece.
Seems kinda odd they'd put Lion King and Aladdin on the front there. I don't really think of either game when it comes to "legends" or anything. Just an odd marketing choice I guess!

BurgerTime is my favorite. Funny after all the years of not playing it, the moves came back to me pretty quickly. The grandkids love it. They gravitate towards the old games with the bland graphics instead of the newer games.

 

[IrishLion]

Speaking of survival games, there is one game I read about and watched some Youtube videos on maybe two or three years ago (maybe even longer), and I cannot for the life of me remember the name.

ulukinatme would probably be my only hope of identifying based off of a terrible description, so here it goes:

It's MMO, I think, and you're basically out and about trying to survive. Weapons seem to be readily available, or at least for the advanced players, which mostly appear to play as snipers, going from cover-to-cover or POI-to-POI (unless you find or craft a vehicle). The video I saw had the player avoiding some other players in a military vehicle convoy, then went over some hillsides to the strategic place on the server, which was a set of four or five very tall towers/apartment buildings at the top of a hill. He was trying to snipe other players from there, then decided to move.

Later on, he crafted himself a helicopter (!) and was trying to break into another player's "home" with his vehicle, which apparently was a big deal.

It was basically "be a sniper and then craft military vehicles or helicopters to try and wreck other players' bases." The environment itself seemed kind of bare-bones, but the action/interaction between players seemed legit, particularly with the depth of vehicle controls.

I don't even have a gaming computer, but I've always tried to go back and find those videos just to see if that game is still going lol.

 

[ulukinatme]

Speaking of survival games, there is one game I read about and watched some Youtube videos on maybe two or three years ago (maybe even longer), and I cannot for the life of me remember the name.

ulukinatme would probably be my only hope of identifying based off of a terrible description, so here it goes:

It's MMO, I think, and you're basically out and about trying to survive. Weapons seem to be readily available, or at least for the advanced players, which mostly appear to play as snipers, going from cover-to-cover or POI-to-POI (unless you find or craft a vehicle). The video I saw had the player avoiding some other players in a military vehicle convoy, then went over some hillsides to the strategic place on the server, which was a set of four or five very tall towers/apartment buildings at the top of a hill. He was trying to snipe other players from there, then decided to move.

Later on, he crafted himself a helicopter (!) and was trying to break into another player's "home" with his vehicle, which apparently was a big deal.

It was basically "be a sniper and then craft military vehicles or helicopters to try and wreck other players' bases." The environment itself seemed kind of bare-bones, but the action/interaction between players seemed legit, particularly with the depth of vehicle controls.

I don't even have a gaming computer, but I've always tried to go back and find those videos just to see if that game is still going lol.

Hrm, sounds a bit like Rust and I haven't played it for a few years, but last I checked you can't craft the helicopters in that game you just find them.

7 Days to Die you can craft Gyrocopters and there's modded modern Helicopters, but that's a zombie survival game and I'm guessing you would have remembered zombies in the videos.

Are there any other details you can give? Was it just players vs. players? Were the graphics more realistic or did it use cell shading art? Was it released in the last 2-4 years or was someone streaming a game that may have been older?

 

[IrishLion]

Hrm, sounds a bit like Rust and I haven't played it for a few years, but last I checked you can't craft the helicopters in that game you just find them.

7 Days to Die you can craft Gyrocopters and there's modded modern Helicopters, but that's a zombie survival game and I'm guessing you would have remembered zombies in the videos.

Are there any other details you can give? Was it just players vs. players? Were the graphics more realistic or did it use cell shading art? Was it released in the last 2-4 years or was someone streaming a game that may have been older?

After further research, I’m fairly certain it was DayZ

 

[ulukinatme]

After further research, I’m fairly certain it was DayZ

DayZ would check those boxes. I wasn't sure about the helicopter crafting though. Last time I played it (years ago mind you) I thought that stuff was found only.

 

[IrishLion]

DayZ would check those boxes. I wasn't sure about the helicopter crafting though. Last time I played it (years ago mind you) I thought that stuff was found only.

It’s probably true that you find vehicles rather than craft them, I think I’m conflating the guy crafting a helicopter with when he crafted a bomb to break into another player’s base

 

[ACamp1900]

Got a series x with nhl 22 and fifa 22 and picked up Metroid dread for good measure,… loving it thus far