What are you playing?

[REPO Man]

I only really like the Zombies mode.

[Jagosaurus]

And keep in mind, the first Russian level is one of the best FPS levels of all time. You'll know why when you get there. It is...an experience.

-
Beat the Brits campaign section and enjoyed it. This is an interesting time in FPS. The corridor levels still have some of that Goldeneye era feel to them. That last English Ship mission definitely has 007 Frigate vibes to it.

I'm now about halfway done with the Russian campaign section. Good call ... Stalingrad & Red Square were as advertised. Great gameplay, memorable setting. It gets a high vote from me. Would've blown my mind in 2003.

I also miss all the fluid in-engine cutscenes from this timeframe, where you still have control of your character. Was thinking this same thing during Halo gameplay recently. No loading, no cinematic transition.

[pierrot]

Such a shame hearing your PC struggle with the demo. I needed to mod my installation with ultrawide support and the cutscenes keeps going down to 30 FPS (which can be alleviated by pressing F11 twice during EVERY cutscene), but other than that it runs mostly well on my temporary 4060 graphics card.

Now that you mention it, it might have just been during cutscenes for me, too. I was noticing a fair amount of frame pacing issues, but now I can't remember if they were actually during normal gameplay at all. I'm on a 2070 Super with a Ryzen 7 3700X, but I only play at 1080p, so I'm still a little bit over their recommended specs. I kind of wonder if it's any different on consoles (not that I have any of them, I just wonder if it's mostly a PC optimization thing). I could try it on my much more beef-spec'ed laptop, but I don't prefer to play games that way.

I'm heavily regretting putting down 60 euro for the game, for one third of that price, it would have been a whole other deal. I rarely purchase anything at full price anymore, but I figured that the mana franchise is one of these franchises that really need the extra push. And Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3 for the SFC are both such huge parts of my childhood that I just wanted to support it somehow. I just wished it was an 9/10 for me rather than a 7/10. Not great, not terrible.

Ah, bummer. Yeah, I was almost all in on preordering after seeing one of the trailers not long ago, for mostly the same reasons as you. Then I happened to see a gameplay hands-on from a couple months before that which made me think, 'Yeah, it looks pretty good, but I'm gonna wait for release.' I had FF Adventure as a kid, and didn't play SD3 or Legend of Mana until almost ten years ago, but loved those. So I was pumped from the Visions trailer, thinking it looked like a 9/10, too. The gameplay footage, and demo probably just brought my expectations more in line with reality. I could see it being a solid 7/10. That's somewhat disappointing, but seems realistic.

I was playing through the rest of the demo for Visions of Mana today, 'cause it's just been sitting in my installations and I wanted to clear it out. Anyway, I feel like I need to update some things because I did a bit of messing around in the menus.

First, I figured out the frame pacing thing while running a stats monitor. I was locked at my monitor refresh rate, based on the stats, but the frame pacing was terrible in all phases of the game. The issue was apparently due to having uncapped frame rate enabled with vsync. I could turn off vsync alone to get slightly better results, but actually setting the frame limit to my monitor refresh rate made gameplay buttery smooth. Looks great. Sadly all cutscenes appear to be locked at 30 fps, and it looks pretty terrible. I assume there are probably some permanent work-arounds for this on PC, but I didn't look into it.

I was enjoying the demo a lot more with a bit of separation from my initial disappointment and an improved visual experience. The character customization seems potentially interesting. While I didn't care for the look of the fields areas, the town in the demo is pretty nice to look at, also. The story presentation feels kind of extra juvenile and a little awkward, the music is nice doesn't feel very impressive, and movement and combat still don't feel all that great to me, but I'm kind of intrigued. If I notice it getting to half-off some time, I'll probably grab it.

[Ack]

7 Days to Die

This game gives a ridiculous amount of player agency in its construction tools.

And yes, that is me driving a motorcycle off a ramp we built.

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

Pseudoregalia!
Best 3D platformer ever?
Could perhaps use more personality, but man, the movement options!!

[pierrot]

I finished Wild Arms last night. It was not a game I would say I enjoyed, though. The main thing is the story feels very haphazard and poorly constructed. A lot of what it seemed like they were going for felt like it had very little emotional weight due to new wrinkles and themes being added and abandoned almost constantly. Ultimately I thought the story felt very shallow despite there being so much of it in places. There are some interesting ideas in the gameplay (character specific interaction tools) and combat (Force gauge), but in practice I didn't find them to add much to the experience. The graphics are sort of nice, but mostly drab and not very interesting to look at. I also don't prefer the 'silicon graphics' character sprites, personally. I would say the sound design was my favorite thing about the game, but it's a little bit of a mixed bag because while the music is generally very enjoyable, a lot of the sfx are pretty bad (enemy sfx, and the horrible, demonic, squealing noise at the end of the game during a scene with a coalescing orb of light.) It's kind of one of those games that seems like it should have a lot going for it, so kind of like Breath of FIre II, FFIV, or Chrono Trigger, I could have been fooled into thinking it was great if I hadn't already played so many profoundly better JRPGs. It's not bad, it's just very unimpressive. It's honestly made me a lot more apprehensive about playing the rest of the games in the series, though.

I've also been playing Hollow Knight lately. It kind of preys on some primal urge in me to explore shit in metroidvanias, but while I kind of generally enjoy the atmosphere of the game, I don't particularly care about the subject matter much. The design also frustrates me a bit: First and foremost, the mapping thing is just an annoying mess; I also don't find the design of the 'world' to be very sensible (something I feel a lot of Western indie metroidvanias kind of have in common, actually). In other words, I'm kind of compelled to explore all over the place even though I don't actually really want to. A couple of the enemy types in the Deepnest are also fucking infuriating. On a semi-related note, if there's any more talk in this game about something laying itself down somewhere (transitive verb) when they mean it's "lying" there (intransitive verb), I'm going to throw a puppy into orbit.

I was thinking of starting up Clock Tower: The First Fear tonight, as well. 'Tis the season, and all. I heard yesterday that it's actually being re-released as a remaster of sorts (looks to be tomorrow, actually), but I already have the PS1 version, so I intend to play it.

[pierrot]

I ended up playing through Clock Tower: The First Fear the last two nights. Got Ending B. It was all right, but I'm kind of surprised it has the cult following that it does. I kind of enjoyed it, but it's a little-- weird? I don't really know exactly how to say it. It's pretty short, with a kind of paper thin story, and really not that much for actual tension. They tried to put in a health system that really does not work for the game at all because running depletes health, but you can't die from it. Walking is painfully slow, and you have to stop in place and wait for the main character to sit around a while to regain health. Thing is, even if you get caught in a spot where you die from low health, you just reload in (often) the same room, and try again. There's really no downside to just running constantly, but I actually didn't fully realize this until about halfway through the game.

I got pretty stuck around the end of the game, and tired of wandering around the mansion, I just looked some stuff up. Found out that apparently there are a whole bunch of random elements for things like locations of a few items and even rooms being reorganized. While that sounds kind of cool in theory, in practice it makes me not really want to play the game again. The requirements for different endings also seem kind of silly. I was thinking about maybe playing Clock Tower 2 next, though. Could be even more of a challenge, just because my first impression testing it after I bought it was that it's a game with some god awful, abominable 3D. Could be good underneath that exterior, though. Seems it was the last Clock Tower that Kono Hifumi worked on.

[ElkinFencer10]

I've been spreading my time a little too thin. Playing:

- Finishing Doom 2 (Unity Port)
- Dabbling in new Doom 1 + 2 (latest Kex engine release)
- Emulating several titles in Atari 7800 library
- Waiting to finish Dragon Quest XI when schedule calms a bit. About 75% done.

I am replaying Army Men: Major Malfunction on Xbox for the last Army Men game in my review series. Pray for me; this game is god awful.

Did you review Army Men Sarge's War? Always wanted to play that one with the tone supposedly a tad darker. On a bit of an OG XB kick so may pick it up.

Yep, I've got a Sarge's War video up on my YouTube channel (he replies two months late)

[Ack]

I ended up playing through Clock Tower: The First Fear the last two nights. Got Ending B. It was all right, but I'm kind of surprised it has the cult following that it does. I kind of enjoyed it, but it's a little-- weird? I don't really know exactly how to say it. It's pretty short, with a kind of paper thin story, and really not that much for actual tension. They tried to put in a health system that really does not work for the game at all because running depletes health, but you can't die from it. Walking is painfully slow, and you have to stop in place and wait for the main character to sit around a while to regain health. Thing is, even if you get caught in a spot where you die from low health, you just reload in (often) the same room, and try again. There's really no downside to just running constantly, but I actually didn't fully realize this until about halfway through the game.

I got pretty stuck around the end of the game, and tired of wandering around the mansion, I just looked some stuff up. Found out that apparently there are a whole bunch of random elements for things like locations of a few items and even rooms being reorganized. While that sounds kind of cool in theory, in practice it makes me not really want to play the game again. The requirements for different endings also seem kind of silly. I was thinking about maybe playing Clock Tower 2 next, though. Could be even more of a challenge, just because my first impression testing it after I bought it was that it's a game with some god awful, abominable 3D. Could be good underneath that exterior, though. Seems it was the last Clock Tower that Kono Hifumi worked on.

Clock Tower: The First Fear is an interesting experiment. There really wasn't much like it at the time, and since it didn't see a US release for so long, we definitely elevated it as some incredible thing that, admittedly, doesn't live up to the hype. I think it's a good thing you played it, but yeah, it's one to consider for historical value and less because it's a great game to play.

[pierrot]

Clock Tower: The First Fear is an interesting experiment. There really wasn't much like it at the time, and since it didn't see a US release for so long, we definitely elevated it as some incredible thing that, admittedly, doesn't live up to the hype. I think it's a good thing you played it, but yeah, it's one to consider for historical value and less because it's a great game to play.

Yeah, I'm happy to have played through it, even just to have it under my belt, and it wasn't a bad experience. I didn't love it, but I also didn't think it was completely devoid of appeal.

I've always been mostly interested in the Clock Tower series for Clock Tower 3, anyway, and getting the first game out the of the way puts me that much closer to 3.