What are you playing right now?

[danzibr]

That’s cool (about RE2). I played it a ton when I was a kid, intend to get the remake. Problem is, shirt on time. Still gotta get through a few other things first.

[Gnoman]

My main problem with the RE2 remake is that they gave Claire a "girl-gun".


In the original, Leon started with VP70 that had an 18-round magazine, and Claire gets a Browning Hi-Power (13 rounds) in the opening cutscene. The remake still gives the VP70 (They don't use real gun names anymore, but they're still blatantly modeled on specific real ones) to Leon, albeit with only a 13 round magazine, but Claire starts off with a tiny revolver (blatantly a Smith And Wesson Ladysmith) that holds 5 rounds. This makes normal zombies (which can easily take 6+ shots to take down, even on Normal difficulty) very, very dangerous.

[Rodin]

My main problem with the RE2 remake is that they gave Claire a "girl-gun".


In the original, Leon started with VP70 that had an 18-round magazine, and Claire gets a Browning Hi-Power (13 rounds) in the opening cutscene. The remake still gives the VP70 (They don't use real gun names anymore, but they're still blatantly modeled on specific real ones) to Leon, albeit with only a 13 round magazine, but Claire starts off with a tiny revolver (blatantly a Smith And Wesson Ladysmith) that holds 5 rounds. This makes normal zombies (which can easily take 6+ shots to take down, even on Normal difficulty) very, very dangerous.

I think the handgun difference is more than made up for with the comparison of their second weapons, the

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Grenade Launcher and the Shotgun. The shotgun just doesn't even compare, taking 8 rounds to take out a Licker on Hardcore difficulty. The grenade launcher does it in 2. The shotgun is a terribly wimpy gun for how scarce the ammo is, with the best purpose for it being to headshot normal zombies - something you should be using pistols for mostly anyway. I dunno, maybe it's more useful in Normal mode?

Jill also has the benefits of finding a handgun with a much more respectable magazine later on which also has the combination of a laser sight, high damage, and a high crit rate.

Overall, I've found that clip size mostly doesn't matter as much as one might expect, at least on Normal. If you're getting swarmed, and you're shooting them, you're doing it wrong. If you're methodically eliminating zombies to clear an area, you should be shooting them in the head 3-4 times, then stabbing them repeatedly in the face with the combat knife to finish them. I used this method (with Jill) to clear the entire first chapter of zombies, barring that one zombie-filled corridor with all the windows that just wasn't worth the ammunition. I still had enough pistol ammo left over that I was storing some in my stash to save inventory space.

NOTE: DO NOT TRY THIS ON HARDCORE. There is not enough ammunition in the WORLD. From what I gather, the preferred strategy there is kneecapping, then remembering where you left all the crawling zombies when you return.

Edit:

Another thing I've found is that the remake is generally very fair with how new zombies are added to the world. If you get surprised by a zombie hitting you out of nowhere when you revisit an area (or are sprinting back away from an area you just unleashed a horde), that zombie was almost certainly already present in some form. I've taken to either shanking or headshotting every suspicious corpse just to try and get a reaction. It's either ammo now, or health later.

[Gnoman]

My biggest issue with Claire's handgun was

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The first fight with G. You have to shoot him a bit to expose the eye, and (unlike Leon) I always was reloading when the eye was exposed. You can't get the second handgun or the grenade launcher stock (needed for pinpoint accuracy) before then, so you really have to rely on the handgun in that fight.

[Rodin]

My biggest issue with Claire's handgun was

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The first fight with G. You have to shoot him a bit to expose the eye, and (unlike Leon) I always was reloading when the eye was exposed. You can't get the second handgun or the grenade launcher stock (needed for pinpoint accuracy) before then, so you really have to rely on the handgun in that fight.

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Hmm, was this normal or Hardcore? I barely shot him with the handgun, I just shot him repeatedly with the grenade launcher. It took all my ammo for the grenade launcher, but hitting him with that and then following up with 5 rounds rapid to the eyeball if I had a clean shot worked pretty well. And with Claire's route it's a good while before the launcher is required again provided you sneak through the Kennels.

[Anonymouswizard]

As it was on sale I decided to pick up Sonic Mania, due to the entire 'greatest Sonic game ever' stuff. I have to say that it is one of the few games I've found so fun that I immediately stopped and bought the DLC.

Admittedly I'm having much more fun and success playing as Mighty than I did as Sonic and Tails, although that might have been because I was having trouble with the Drop Dash (which I've now looked up).

[Zevox]

Mighty is playable in Sonic Mania? As in Mighty the Armadillo, of the Chaotix? Huh. Now there's an odd choice I wouldn't have expected. One of these days I should pick that game up myself.

[Anonymouswizard]

Mighty is playable in Sonic Mania? As in Mighty the Armadillo, of the Chaotix? Huh. Now there's an odd choice I wouldn't have expected. One of these days I should pick that game up myself.

Yes, both Mighty and Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel of Segasonic the Hedgehog are playable if you've bought the Encore DLC, with Mighty having also appeared in Knuckles Chaotix. Mighty gets a ground pound and is resistant to damage while spinning (which I love, it can make sudden drops onto spikes less deadly), while Ray has a more powerful glide than Knuckles does.

Yeah, it's an interesting choice, but it makes a lot of sense. They haven't appeared in a long time, which means that it's both a genuine surprise and a warm welcome to see them, and the only other character that they really could have added is Amy (which I'll admit I'm a bit surprised they didn't add alongside Mighty and Ray). Characters such as E-123 Omega, Shadow, and Rouge don't appear until the Sonic Adventure titles, so they'd feel a little out of place in the classic 2D style and honestly I think would highlight the fact that nobody speaks a little too much.

So yeah, core game is Sonic, Tails, & Knuckles with the standard Sonic+Tails pairing, while Encore adds in Mighty and Ray to the original game as well as Encore Mode.

I really do recommend picking it up. It's 2D Sonic, with all the flaws alongside all the benefits, but 2D Sonic was never bad and Mania is definitely an attempt to build and expand.

[danzibr]

On the topic of Sonic Mania, imo it’s the best in the series since S3&K.

[factotum]

On the topic of Sonic Mania, imo it’s the best in the series since S3&K.

Given how utterly terrible many of the Sonic games have been, that's not necessarily a particularly amazing thing.

[danzibr]

Given how utterly terrible many of the Sonic games have been, that's not necessarily a particularly amazing thing.

True, set the bar so low you could trip over it :P

[The Glyphstone]

How terrible, exactly, is the average Sonic game? Say, on a scale from Superman 64 to Battletoads.

[Anonymouswizard]

How terrible, exactly, is the average Sonic game? Say, on a scale from Superman 64 to Battletoads.

Hard to say, the best Sonic games are at about a Doom level of decency, but the worst are at the level of 'unfinished Superman 64'. At an absolute average it's probably at around the level of Castlevania 2, but if we remove the Mega Drive games and Mania it sinks to about the level of Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

[rooster707]

How terrible, exactly, is the average Sonic game? Say, on a scale from Superman 64 to Battletoads.

I don’t know about the average, but this playthrough should give you an idea of how bad they can get.

[Zevox]

How terrible, exactly, is the average Sonic game? Say, on a scale from Superman 64 to Battletoads.

Eh, they're too all over the map to have an average. A few of the past couple of decades have been actually somewhat good, like Sonic Generations or Sonic Adventure 2 - just not as good as you'd want for what's supposed to be a big AAA franchise.

But on the other hand you have things ranging from Sonic and the Black Knight, which is a mediocre at best game with an odd premise, down to Sonic '06, which is at times a nearly unplayable mess on top of having a weird story that romantically paired Sonic with a human girl. Or there's Sonic Unleashed, where Sonic becomes a Werewolf - or Werehog, as the game insists on calling it despite him clearly having wolf-like features in that form - which IIRC played like an awkward Prince of Persia ripoff during the night segments, but on the other hand the day segments in it where you play as normal Sonic were the first sign of them finding ways to make him work again in 3D and later became the basis for the gameplay of Sonic Colors and Generations, two of the better games. Or there was Sonic and the Secret Rings, which was a Wii title with terrible motion controls that rendered it a massive pain in the ass to even try to play.

Yeah, it's pretty hard to find an average when the games basically jump around the entire "not good" spectrum.

[DeadMech]

Oh god Sonic 06... yikes. I mean it's almost unfair to show someone unfamiliar with Sonic that. It's basically the lowest point in the entire sonic franchise.

I've only played two Sonic games in my life so I'm like totally an expert here. One on a genesis a kid I was friends with had. Probably Sonic 2 since I think tails was in it. I don't remember much about it because it was the one time. His father was kinda strict, wouldn't let us play inside apart from the one day when a large aggressive dog wandered into the neighbourhood. It was for like 10 minutes and it wasn't very fun sitting down to for the the first time. Playing blind in a game where you are meant to go fast means you hit allot of enemies or spikes you have no way to tell are coming.

The other was Sonic CD for the pc. This was a time in my life when every video game I owned I had already beaten about 20 times. At that time I probably owned a dozen games at the most so when my dad got me one I played the hell out of it regardless of if it was Super Mario Bros 3, Chip and Dales Rescue Rangers, or Back the the future. Even played enough Duck Hunt to learn that you can overflow the score counter. (It just starts back at 0 again)

It was okay. It's the same 2d sidescrolling problem but since I owned it and could play it whenever as much as I wanted eventually I just brute forced my way through by memorizing whatever level I was up to at the point. I mean I make it sound worse than it really was. I enjoyed it at the time but...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYWC6ob8uA0

This is the best thing to come out of the entire experience. The opening and closing animations along with that song. Still love it. Not to be confused with Sonic Boom the awful games or Sonic Boom the most recent TV CG cartoon. I'll talk about those later. But the rest of the games I experienced vicariously through youtube let's plays.

I don't envy the people that make Sonic games. The series suffers from numerous self inflicted handicaps and the AAA game industry isn't exactly making it any easier. To start with let's go back to speed. Sonic is supposed to be fast. This creates allot of issues when you're making a game. It puts you in a battle against technology to start with. There is only so much memory to load levels but since you can and many are designed to be moved through very quickly the level has to be larger than a game with a slower pace. You can only load so much textures or sprites and only calculate so much level at a time. And your game can only used to have so much space to fit on a cartridge or on a disk. And to add insult to injury anything you throw into a level might only be seen by the player as a blur for half a second.

Early 2D Sonic games were pretty good at using the vertical sections of levels. Back then you could only load a level up to a certain size of square. It took Nintendo games a fairly long time to be able to scroll in both left and right as well as up and down. Early Mario games the levels only scrolled in one axis until SMB3 and that took some clever hacking to figure out and the hardware still had some issues. Getting around these limitations in 3d games is a different beast so you design levels in a way where the hardware only has to load manageable chunks at a time by physically hiding the undrawn portions of the level behind some geography or by cutting corners and simply not modelling or texturing areas that should be out of sight of the player's camera.

So you fill your game with levels, cutting every corner and using every usable inch of the map... and you still have a short game. Big as the levels are players are still going to move through them at blazing speed. So what do you do?

Well what if we made extra characters? Like a flying Fox or a gliding and climbing Echidna. See now we can extend the gameplay even longer by running these new characters through the same levels but because of their different abilities they can take different route that Sonic might not have been able to. And the players can have fun exploring the levels over and over... And it worked to an extent. You lost a little of the length of the game for a single playthrough but in the end it worked out pretty well... until the 3D Era.

The Sonic Adventure games went to like... 7 playable characters. All of them stomping through the same landscape all of them with their own game mechanics... like hunting frogs and going fishing... even at this point I think... you know this still kinda works if you enjoy these different modes. If you only came for Sonic and going fast... well you have a somewhat short and unsatisfying experience. And yeah Knuckles hunting through overly large levels tracking emeralds didn't sit well with everyone... And Amy's levels were usually just Sonic levels but slower... But well I still think it works. The issue though is the more game modes you threw into a game, the harder it was to balance your game around all those modes and fix all the bugs. Also these games didn't age the best... Early 3d games had camera issues and handling issues and the visuals tended not to age the best but I can forgive that since I grew up being amazed that we even could play 3D games.

Every character is a new gameplay mode to balance and well... if you have Sonic do a snowboard section that's another. Or speed sections on rails... thats another... And if someone drives a jeep... for some reason... that's another. And well there is probably a water level of some kind... Maybe two different kinds of water craft... yeah these games became a bit bloated with gimmicks.

And well... quality testing game mechanics and fixing bugs before shipping became something Team Sonic became worse and worse at with time. Games were becoming bigger and more expensive every year but the business model hadn't changed. I'm not 100% certain of this but even today I think Sonic games tend to avoid the worst of the DLC, microtransaction, season pass culture that's an epidemic in gaming now. But this means the teams making them have a limited budget and a limited time to work on them. By the time you get to Sonic 06 or the Sonic Boom games, they are coming out in a barely playable state. And I mean I can't imagine the dev teams that worked on these games with ever decreasing QA were happy with the end product.

I don't think it's a coincidence that newer better received post Sonic Dark age games have drastically cut down on this stuff. And that's kinda a disappointment. Cause here's the thing. Every time you make a new character, if you have done a decent job, you have created someone's favorite character. So not getting to play or perhaps even see your favorite character in the ongoing games kinda sucks. And at this point there are a ridiculous number of Sonic characters. And that's without getting into the insanity that is the cast of the comics.

Man... Sonic 06... that's such a train wreck. Like I can see Sonic adventure somewhere in there. It's probably not hard to. They basically stole the first level out of it. And the snowboarding sections. And Sonic running around a city full of humans, A story leading to an apocalypse... but yeah... they just broke everything. Most people's first impression is losing all their lives to the unplayable controls in that first level after having endured the awful and unnecessary loading... only to find out the game didn't autosave their progress and now they have to replay the tutorial and rebuy the light chip to get back into the first level. I don't think I've ever seen someone play past that before today.

And I'm just not as upset about the Sonic/Elisa thing as most people seem to be. Or at least not for the same reasons. Sonic has been stuck as what a 90's child thought was cool sine his inception. Specifically from like a like a 7 year old boy's perspective. Sonic doesn't hang out with girls. They're gross and make him and his target audience feel weird. Seeing him voluntarily spending time with one beyond literally saving their life is odd for him. Let alone having heartfelt conversations and teaching a final fantasy princess how to let it go and have fun.

Anyway... I've spent far too long thinking about Sonic today.

[Rodin]

I continue to find myself amazed at how freaking TOUGH the zombies in RE2 can be. There is this one particular zombie in the West Office that I've concluded is actually immortal. First time I went in there, I shot him in the head a lot and he went down. I remember thinking he was remarkably tough at the time, taking several more bullets than your standard zombie. I gave him the old "shanky shanky" to see if he'd get up, and he didn't. When I came back later in the game, dude was back up. I was impressed, and gave him another few bullets between the eyes to drop him again. Tested with the knife again, no reaction.

Cutting through the room for a third time much later in the game, the dude is STILL there. I don't even know how his head is still on after all the punishment its taken at this point, but he didn't asplode when he went down and I refuse to waste more knife durability on his ass. I fully expect to be flying away at the end of the game and the camera will pan back to show him waving at me from the window.

[Gnoman]

The West Office is a really, really useful shortcut, especially once your buddy shows up. Once you aggro any zombie in there, putting them down permanently is a very good idea.

[Velaryon]

My biggest problem with Dark Souls is the control system. I don't mind difficult combat in a game, but I shouldn't feel like the clunky controls or camera are the biggest obstacles.

Thank you for posting this. I felt exactly the same, like a lot of the difficulty came from the controls just being clunky and slow to respond, rather than something like challenging AI which would feel a lot less bad.

[LibraryOgre]

I just dropped Star Trek: Fleet Commander. I am REALLY tired of mandatory PVP as a game mechanic. I am convinced that game devs use it to cover that their games aren't that great... you're so mad about having to deal with the worst people of the internet in a situation where they have few reprecussions for their actions, that you don't have time to complain that the game just isn't that good.

[Forbiddenwar]

Speaking of horrible controls that hurt an otherwise amazing game . . .
I just finished Witcher. Somewhere in the middle of chapter 3 it seemed to click and I started really enjoying it. The hard grey decisions resulting in how people treat you and who is even alive later. Just wow. Shame about the combat controls.

[danzibr]

Speaking of horrible controls that hurt an otherwise amazing game . . .
I just finished Witcher. Somewhere in the middle of chapter 3 it seemed to click and I started really enjoying it. The hard grey decisions resulting in how people treat you and who is even alive later. Just wow. Shame about the combat controls.

Seconded.

Especially while swimming.

[tonberrian]

Got suckered into Etrian Odyssey V again. There's nothing quite like finding out you have to return to town to progress the plot, taking 2 steps to explore the little bit of floor not behind plot, then wiping to a random encounter and finding your last save was a half hour ago.

[factotum]

Speaking of horrible controls that hurt an otherwise amazing game . . .
I just finished Witcher. Somewhere in the middle of chapter 3 it seemed to click and I started really enjoying it. The hard grey decisions resulting in how people treat you and who is even alive later. Just wow. Shame about the combat controls.

The second two games were far better for combat controls than the first one, definitely.

[Grif]

The second two games were far better for combat controls than the first one, definitely.

I actually rather liked the timed combat of the first.

[rooster707]

Finished Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Overall I really liked it (although I never quite got over the clunky combat) - it’s a lot more Deus Ex-ish than I expected going in, which is definitely a good thing.

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I played with the basic version of the unofficial patch, since I wanted to get What The Developers Intended and so forth. However, I ended up getting much more attached to Heather than I expected, to the point that I’m considering another playthrough with the Plus patch just to save her.

[Forbiddenwar]

I started x-blades, because I wanted something silly and i enjoyed the spiritual sequel,. Blades of Time.
But I'm just bored so I might give it up.

Blades of time was a decent action brawler, explore levels, fight enemies, unlock new abilities and find secrets. (Like Darksiders) The tutorial level of x-blades was the same. But after that it's just been locked arena, fight hundreds of enemies to unlock the door to the next arena where the doors lock and you fight hundreds more. No secrets, no exploration and no story. The combat is boring too. No new combat moves, just slash slash slash, with a spell you can cast occasionally. You get guns too, but they never hit anything.

I thinking of skipping this game. It's just boring. I don't mind arena fights, but the combat is just so tedious.

The tutorial lied.

[warty goblin]

I started x-blades, because I wanted something silly and i enjoyed the spiritual sequel,. Blades of Time.
But I'm just bored so I might give it up.

Blades of time was a decent action brawler, explore levels, fight enemies, unlock new abilities and find secrets. (Like Darksiders) The tutorial level of x-blades was the same. But after that it's just been locked arena, fight hundreds of enemies to unlock the door to the next arena where the doors lock and you fight hundreds more. No secrets, no exploration and no story. The combat is boring too. No new combat moves, just slash slash slash, with a spell you can cast occasionally. You get guns too, but they never hit anything.

I liked Blades of Time, some of the uses of the rewind/clone power were really pretty cool. X-Blades is, as you note, basically without redeeming value however. Such a pity, the enjoyable mediocre action game is so hard to find. I'd recommend Lord of the Rings: War in the North, which lets you call in eagle airstrikes on trolls, which is actually cooler than it sounds.

For something a bit more in the action RPG mold, I rather like Shadows: Awakening, which is total fantasy nonsense, knows it, and just has a right ball of a time. Has surprisingly good totally brainless puzzles as well, the sort that keep you paying attention to the environment, even if they take like 45 seconds of sort of thought to solve.

[oxybe]

got Prison Architect and Cities Skylines for cheap recently.

I'm conflicted about the first.

As much as I like developing my prison, it's difficult to grow it organically and I find that i will need to sell and rebuid a new prison to try for the bigger prisonners held numbers so i can prison better... but lumberjacking is much more profitable. about a third of my prison is legit just woods to chop down and regrow as another source of income.

also for some reason they keep delivering prisoners that never get brought in, even though i have empty cells... and i now have a mountain of starved and beaten/tazer'd corpses at my gates.

the second feels like a game that will benefit from the steam workshop and mods/dlc. a very solid city building foundation that is rife for playing around with.

[thirsting]

Elder Scrolls Legends. It's great, as long as I have enough gold to keep playing Versus Arena. It's just, it's making me want to reinstall Skyrim, which will inevitably lead to modding, which will lead to spending way more time finding and troubleshooting mods than actual playing, which will lead to frustration and burnout. Aaaahrgh

I need a job.

Edit: Failed will-save. Skyrim installed again. But, Enderal seems to be in Steam now, so mod-madness averted.. phew