Hey everyone. Hope you all had a good week and relaxing weekend. I actually didn’t game much this weekend as I was preparing to move apartments and also went on a weekend trip with friends, but I did squeeze in some Xcom 2 today. Hope everyone has a productive week.
I’ve been trying to start Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 because it’s turn based and everyone’s raving about it.
Now admittedly I’m full of flu and feeling pretty crappy, so that’s probably not the best time, and I’ve only really played the opening hour, maybe a little more. But… I think I hate it???
The big issue for me is that it’s sooo parry/dodge timing based. I was hopeful because people were talking about it as like a old school turn based JRPG but as someone with mild dyspraxia I really struggle with the kind of arhythmic, flourishy timing stuff in all these Soulslikes and modern action-adventure games, so the fact that it’s such a big part of this turn-based game is a massive disappointment.
But there’s also a lot about it that bothers me in ways I can’t fully articulate. It all just feels a bit… uncanny. The acceleration of movements is way too high, animations feel odd and jittery, characters have uncanny proportions, and the graphics have an odd mix of diorama-like craftiness and almost AI-art like debris & detail smear. It’s the same with the dialogue too. The writing feels melodramatic to cover how expositional it is, but the performances are weirdly flat. Tonally it seems to take itself incredibly seriously but then does kind of fourth-wall breaking winks about videogames to skip over things that wouldn’t work gameplay-wise. I dunno, maybe this stuff is partly the result of being a bit feverish but I find the the sum total of it a bit disorientating and unpleasant.
I realise these are probably pretty specific complaints to me for the most part though. I’m not saying it’s an objectively bad game or anything. I’m just pretty
Started Playing Baldur’s Gate 3 and I’m enjoying it
Bald AND Gay 3
Marvel Rivals - Started playing with some of my wow guild mates, v fun. I don’t get super into hero shooters but it’s a fun thing to do with friends.
Dredge - Finally got around to pirating it, nice game to play while my spouse and I listen to a podcast
Baldur’s Gate 3 - Slow progress, don’t have that much time I can really sit down with headphones on and focus on something but it’s so good.
Blue Prince is pretty good ngl
i just got off work and made dinner but then I played a game of Super Mega Baseball 3 and listened to “Type 56: The Story of China’s Army” youtube channel
played some MW3 (2011) survival mode, forgot how good the MP9 is earlier rounds and managed to down both AH-6s with one airstrike on a helicopter round which was pretty cool
the setup on Underground where you put two grenade launcher sentries in the bus stop at the top of the map and they just demolish anyone coming up the stairs of the station across the street is really fun lol, enemies just flying around ragdolling everywhere with a ton of explosions going off, you can pretty much coast until the mid 20s that way
Finished up the main campaign for Battletech (2018) and now I’m kinda bouncing between things trying find the next thing to stick with.
Andor hype had me playing Partisans 1941 a bit. Set up a PS3 emulator and played a little MGS4. Just plinking away at games until something grabs me lol.
Would you recommend Battletech? I’ve heard a lot of people hype up Roguetech, but not much about the base game itself.
It delivers on the whole “running a mercenary outfit” fantasy imo. The tactical combat is pretty similar to the tabletop game, and there’s a light management layer. The pilots have little to no interaction (just random single choice events), but there’s a support cast that have a little more flavor.
I had to restart once since it felt like some of the pilot builds were a lot more useful than others - it took quite a few mistakes to figure out what worked well. The mechs are simple enough to respec, so it invites experimentation - pilots can’t respec and are kinda annoying to replace (maybe I was running too lean of a crew idk)
Overall, if that sounds appealing, it’s probably worth it on discount or
Picked up the new DLC and started a new Tropico6 sandbox island. So far so good.
hades II – definitely a game I would have loved to play when I was younger; all the little witchy motifs and things they added resonate with me, it’s very amusing. I’ve only unlocked the staff so far, looking forward to getting the sister blades.
Fields of mistria – it lets me choose they/he pronouns, not perfect but definitely better than a certain developer who refuses to even acknowledge that aspect of his player base. I think the player sprites are kinda bad looking 😭 but that’s fine, I like the elements that make it feel like an old jrpg. The map is a reskinned link to the past type of deal.
Playing through bloodborne finally and honestly while i love it its honestly not in my top 3 fromsoft games
I would put it on par with ds3 but below sekiro and elden ring
Give more Mario party like games. I think most of my game related posts are rts related. But all I desire is a smash ultimate/mario kart 8 deluxe Mario party game. Give me 20 boards with 200+ minigames
There’s Fusion Frenzy on the original Xbox - I don’t remember it being particularly good though
I won the crab game.
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I’ve been meaning to play some old Japanese games to test my language learning, so I booted up a PC Engine dungeon crawler called Brandish and ended up fistfighting dinosaurs that look suspiciously like a sitting US president
It’s been pretty fun so far and I enjoyed some of the ridiculous mechanics that screw you over, like how there is an “HP poison” item that looks completely identical to “HP potion” in your inventory and if you try to stack it onto your normal potions it ruins them lol
Playing Pokemon Silver because it dawned on me that I never ran Sudowoodo for more than one gym, despite it being a major player for a large chunk of your quest. Also tired af after a long work week and plenty of exercise.
Currently seeing if I can make Ledyba work, but even Sunkern has been more reliable on story modes. Why is Ledian’s evolution so far away? It’s not like it evolves into a good Poke? Great visual design, so I soldier on.
