But aren’t you bound to miss stuff the first time you play because you can’t be in two spots at the same time?
Still haven’t played it.
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You might miss a little here and there but I got 100% of the achievements and a perfect ending first time.
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Blue Prince is a game that just keeps giving. Every time I think I might be coming up on the end I find another puzzle, or recently a hint for a puzzle I don’t think I’ve even found yet.
I’ve mostly really enjoyed the pacing of it, there has been only one occasion so far where I’ve felt that the randomness of it got in the way of what I wanted to accomplish, and even then that could have been avoided if I hadn’t made a silly mistake which stopped me from achieving it at the first time of asking. I’d love to know if there is a whole lot going on under the hood to adjust the probabilities to help you always make progress or whether I’ve just been lucky.
The only negative is that on one occasion the game glitched and I fell through the map. Rather than reset you to a safe position in your last location, which I wouldn’t have thought would be hard, it ends the day. As a roguelike, this resets most of the game which can wipe out an hour or two of potential progress towards information or a permanent unlock, which is exactly what happened to me. It was pretty frustrating and made me seriously contemplate putting the game aside.
5 Likes
You have been lucky. I was like five runs in without ever encountering a proper puzzle, let alone solving one. Ultimately looked up some early hints which set me on track for another like 5-10 days of better success before I ultimately decided I didn’t feel a strong urge to continue. But I was pretty consistently not getting what I would have needed to solve some of the things I did know about, and I have heard more than a few people complain about the RNG that got much further than I have.
Which isn’t to say that the game only works for people who are lucky. I have also seen plenty of raving about the game, even noting occasional RNG based frustration.
3 Likes
Unfortunately I have to be in the hospital for a longer time, so I used the end of Steam and Epic sale to get some more games, because why not…
Blue Prince, very excited about this one though I have to say I bought a ton of puzzle games now and last week.
Rise of the Golden Idol is another one. Liked the first game quite a bit, didn’t love it (like Obra Dinn) but liked it well enough for getting the successor.
Cyberpunk 2077. I read that the game is pretty good nowadays after they fixed and updated it a lot. The world seems to be pretty immersive, I hope for something like Deus Ex. Though it is probably more action heavy, I don’t know.
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On the train to Berlin last weekend I played As Long As You’re Here, it is only 1 hour long. A lovely game, pretty sad. I feel a video game is not the worst way to show the progression of Alzheimer disease.
Also started Slay the Princess and I like it a lot. It is different than from other choose your own adventure games that it goes way deeper and I feel you get TOTALLY different games with some decisions and that it doesn’t have deadends. Very curious where it leads me. Right now it kinda makes me wonder if I should kick Sorcery! Part 3 and 4 from my pile of shame.
And with my wife I started Strange Antiquities and this seems a good game too. Very curious about the puzzles we can’t solve right now but hover in front of our eyes…
3 Likes
Still playing Borderlands 4 … but mostly for the flow and waiting for more content. I’ve sunk way too many hours into this. All I am missing is 1% of the final / latest boss on the highest difficulty available to me. I almost did it yesterday. But at 1% of boss hitpoints I got swiped off a plattform and died in freefall. I couldn’t try again immediately because the fight is so hard I don’t have the stamina… those 4 or 5 minutes are so intense because Bloom Reaper at Gear 5 is … mean. But I am almost there.
The game is really good or I wouldn’t have the number of hours played.
And yet.
For a game about loot the looting is surprisingly lame.
I can get almost no more upgrades on my main character (Vex with a Bloodshot spec with a Torgue Sticky Bod as main weapon), played 2 of the 3 others to max level as well (starting with the mainquest finished at level 30 tho because I am lazy).
During early levels sure I looked at almost everything as possible upgrade. But now… for all their stated intent to make non-legendary weapons more competitive… I almost immediately trash them because of the amount of stuff that drops and the lack of loot filters (see PoE 2).
One of the last few upgrades that could make my character better is a specific legendary Torgue weapons enhancement. These are the only legendaries that are exclusively random world drops so they cannot be farmed for in any way. I got lucky that I got one at level 35. Even though it lacks max level bonusses the legendary specials make it good enough to use at level 50.
And then: the weapon I am using is very good but I must have killed the boss that drops it a couple hundred times <1min/kill to get an improvement on the 2nd or third one I ever got of this type. It really takes me back to the Mephisto runs I did during university (Diablo II ftw)
Next complaint: the bank where you stash your loot only has 500 spots. about 400 of mine are filled with items I am keeping to use for firmware. These are the only modifiers you can “craft” on items. There are about 20 or so different firmware sets and each can sit on one of 5 item slots. Even only keeping my favorite sets … my bank is filled and the sorting is worse than it was during my World of Warcraft years. (PoE2 also does this better with stash tabs)
For a game about loot, upgrades and optimizing, the legendary drop rates are awful (for xmas they were quintupled which made them okay-ish). And everything else drops so much that I cannot be bothered to sort through it all. Green, blue and purple are just a waste of time and to find the few exceptions is impossible.
The game such a good gameplay flow when you actually have a longer play sequence. But there aren’t a lot of those that make sense to pursue. The repeatable end-game content is boss farming and as mentioned most bosses take under a minute to kill. The Drill Sites are slightly better because of the trash you get to clear but even those get rote and boring after a few attempts.
The open world (great) and the new engine probably ate up most development resources. And the new movement still feels just right. So good. I just wish there was more to do with it.
This is the first game I ever got all Steam achievements for. I guess I just played it too much.
3 Likes
Been playing Metal Gear Solid Δ and having a great time with it. I’m on my third playthrough right now, switched to Very Easy mode just to try to finish collecting the remaining food and camouflage (finished food last night). Then I’m going to make one more run on Extreme difficulty to try to get what should by then be the last remaining trophies, getting Foxhound rank, which should then pop the platinum trophy.
Shouldn’t be too hard. Just have to beat the game in under 5 hours with no kills, alerts, or continues, no life healing medicine usage, and with less than 5 health bars of damage overall. And, of course, you can’t use any of the special items you get after doing certain achievements, like the infinite ammo or stealth camo items.
Thankfully this version of the game creates an autosave every time you go to a new area, so you can easily reload if you mess up. And since I won’t need to hunt for the various collectibles, under 5 hours will be easy. I’ve already gone through with no kills or alerts on Normal, I think the health bars is going to be the trickiest thing. Time will tell.
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I actually started it last night too. Then failed to put it down till I got to the an end. Really enjoyed it and might actually see if I can play through all the options.
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Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom - comfort nostalgia game. I have to install GOG because that’s the only place you can buy it.
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I didn’t think you had to install anything to get games from GOG, just that their Galaxy thingie made it easier to keep and organize everything. Do they have some exclusive to that platform now?
EDIT: Wondering about this made me log into GOG for the first time in a while. I should really try to play some of these 100+ games I have on here…
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No idea. Might be a licensing laziness thing. Pharaoh is in Steam, for example
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Pharaoh + Cleopatra is also on GOG. 
Yeah, I think you can just purchase and download the installer for these. No need to install their Galaxy platform, but if you’re used to Steam, it probably feels more familiar that way.
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@COMaestro is right, you just login on their website and should be able to download the game files. GoG Galaxy is just optional.
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Hades II I am not good at this game but find that the drip feed of upgrades and narrative is much more involved than the original.
Will eventually get past those sirens.
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Finished with Metal Gear Solid so moved on to Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, which I picked up for cheap a year or so ago. Finally time to play it. I’m enjoying it so far. It’s the usual AC fare, though it appears to be solely focused on the historical era and nothing in present day, which I’m fine with. Basim is a interesting character and I am enjoying roaming around Baghdad and getting little bits of historical info of the culture, religion, and environment.
2 Likes