Ooh, I really need to get back to Darkest Dungeon. Never finished it, but I always wanted to, and there’s really no other game like it.
1 Like
I think Darkest Dungeon only really excels in style, but it has that in abundance. There’s an intrinsic problem with having a stable of expendable bods to grind up in levels, in that having them die just increases the time spent grinding. Darkest Dungeon 2 addresses that fairly well by rejigging things to the tried-and-tested win or lose runs at an end boss (five end bosses, as far as I can tell, with a win unlocking the next one). Of course, that alienated a bunch of the fan base, because people are stupid.
3 Likes
I found DD1 really obtuse. I really can’t stand that “it’s grueling and we won’t explain how to do anything” game design philosophy outside of Fromsoft games. Everything on paper looked right up my street (rogue like RPG?!), but I ended up bouncing off after a few hours. I wanted to relax with some turn based gameplay, not be confused and befuddled.
THE STYLE THOUGH! Very beautiful game.
2 Likes
Yeah, that always struck me as the big downside of DD (which I love and have sunk hundreds of hours into) - it’s a hell of a lot more grindy when you don’t know what you’re doing, and it does a very poor job on-boarding new players. It does reward mastery - I don’t lose characters anymore (unless I do something super dumb) so the grind is vastly reduced compared to a new player who is constantly replacing (and then having to pay to upgrade) new heroes.
I enjoyed but didn’t adore the demo of the second (which is probably an unreasonable expectation, I admit), so I’ll wait for a sale for the second.
1 Like
Finally finished Midnight Suns (agree with everything @KIR2 said about it). Thought I’d give Hardspace: Shipbreaker a try.
This game had me at hello.
2 Likes
It’s fun, I liked it.
(I do wish it had leaned into the “crushing debt wage slave” angle a little harder though.)
2 Likes
Agree, although that may be something of a balance between theme and… fun to play.
Big spoiler, don’t read until you finish:
It creates a weird situation though, where your debt actually feels easy to manage if you play well, making it seem like you could actually work your way to freedom. Eventually, the storyline makes all that irrelevant though, and you might even feel “robbed” of earning your way out, which seems totally counter to the entire plot and thrust of the story. They could so easily have added extra arbitrary bullshit debt at story beats, to make it clear there was no way out within the system. Or just made clearing debt a lot harder. Either way would have been fine, I think.
Hmm, I haven’t played but I’m familiar with the basics. I think the system has to work well enough that you the avatar have a reason to go out and shipbreak rather than just sitting in your cubicle. I mean obviously in the real world doing the thing is why you bought the game, but your character should have a reason to keep doing the thing too.
Sure, but I don’t see how anything I wrote contradicts that. The first option, especially.
I forget the exact time-scales involved, but if your character saw light at the end of the tunnel after, say, 10 years of mostly error-free ship-breaking, that would be more than sufficient motivation, I would have thought? As it is though, it begins to feel like you’ll be clear of debts and raking in a fortune within months, which seems totally out of sync with the narrative.
1 Like
There’s definitely a big in-game incentive to keep working right from the start.
1 Like
I had a 4 day week-end and I … did almost nothing but play Zelda 
(no boardgames, not even a single solo-game)
I did not think it likely that a sequel to the best game ever could live up to the hype. I wasn‘t even hyped… too much fear it might be just meh. If my friend had not reminded me that it was out that Friday, I would have bought it whenever.
BotW was the first Zelda game I ever played and it was not love at first sight. I struggled initially. Put it down. Forgot about it. Returned and then … it clicked. TotK is more like „can this be as good? let‘s not get our hopes up“
And obviously YMMV. For me… 
6 Likes
It looks like more BotW with some Garry’s Mod added?
2 Likes
I had to google Garry‘s Mod. Oops.
So from what wikipedia told me the prime feature of Garry‘s Mod is that it is a sandbox game.
The new abilities (which were already demonstrated in preview videos so I feel they are no spoilers to mention) especially the building stuff from anything movable you find feels very sandboxy.
Yesterday I attempted to build an amphibious vehicle (and yes I hate how hard it is to get images off the switch so it is a photo of the TV):
The weapon fusing is very similar.
The other big addition is really the expansion of the 3rd dimension. I would previously have said the game is very 3 dimensional, but with the new locations it is much more so. If I was flying a lot before… I do more of it in this game.
It remains very puzzly and very true to what BotW felt like to me. I keep getting distracted by shiny things to do, so much so that I missed the entry to a questline that had been suggested at the main „hub“ right at the start and I only found it because I was on my way to a tower which it took me 2 hours to get to because there was so much other stuff to do on the way. (my particular play style does not suit my partner at all these days… drives him crazy how I will be all over the map)
So as mentioned above my experience with Zelda games is now up to 2. But as far as my experience goes this is very much Zelda with cool sandbox elements added.
And as you can imagine these new elements are used in puzzles throughout the game. I struggled learning the building and the time manipulating abilities… the vertical travel was easier to internalize. There is no escaping any of these elements. As in the previous game the abilities are key to playing.
And despite my mention of missing an entry to a quest ‘The Great Fairies‘ and the game gently trying to guide you to a starting area after the tutorial phase, order of play is largely up to me and feels very open world (I usually play very different games, my partner who plays a lot of open worlds say this one is truer than some others to that aspect)
4 Likes
Argggghhhh… I need to stop hearing/reading about how good TotK is. My colleagues are all sinking 12-14 hours a day into it, and it sounds so good.
Not your fault, obviously, yashima. I’m really glad it’s good! I just need to keep pretending that it’s not good until I have disposable income again.
4 Likes
I’m assuming this is a day off right?
I also lack dispoable income in the short term to buy it. The good news is it will around when I do have it.
2 Likes
Today is “Victoria Day,” which is a national holiday because, as Terry Prachett said, “Royalty pollutes people’s minds, boy. Honest men start bowing and bobbing just because someone’s granddad was a bigger murdering bastard than theirs was.”
I am not a fan of the monarchy.
Regardless, we do get a day off. But my colleagues have been pulling the 12-14 hour days before the day off due to staying up until 3am multiple days in a row.
I am glad it will still be there when we can get it. It does sound good.
5 Likes
Started looking at Diablo 4. I’ve played most of the Diablo games (not sure how many i actually finished). They are pretty addictive. So, I booted up Battlenet, and after much searching found my authenticator on my phone (looked for “battlenet” and “blizzard” without luck). So, it appears that I have four characters in Diablo 3, highest is 34 (no idea what the level ceiling is). So I’ve given that a bit of a bash, probably don’t need Diablo 4.
2 Likes
I have played Diablo3 on both PC and Switch a lot. I played and finished multiple seasons and would happily pick Diablo3 up again. I skipped the remake for 2 (the original of which I also played an awful lot of as I did with Diablo 1 after initially claiming it looked like a terrible game). The Diablo Franchise is easily one of my most played (after Civ).
Then the mobile cash grab thing came and after seeing multiple reviews mention how it was just targeted at people who wanted to get rid of their money, I skipped that. And I saw something similar mentioned yet again for Diablo 4. Not quite as blantant but a lot of extra cash-spending opportunities.
Until Microsoft buys Activision (it feels so wrong to be rooting for Microsoft here and it may yet turn out to be even worse than it is now but it feels like Blizzard has hit rock bottom and is currently residing in the n-th circle of hell) I am not sure I want to start another Blizzard game. I have not even tried the last WoW expansion and I played all the previous ones. I am losely following what happened with Overwatch 2 which at this point with the cancellation of the PvE content seems just another cash-grab as well.
So I am largely unexcited about the newest part of one of my favorite game franchises (also TotK is so awesome who needs other games?)
4 Likes
If I paid $110 (AUD) for D4, I’d be pretty pissed off if I still had to pay for stuff. Seems like PC players kind of suffer here a bit, you can get it on PS4 for about 75.
3 Likes