Currently Playing - The Bear and Badger

JonB

mrsmr2 wrote:

Pikuniku, free with Twitch Prime. Silly, colourful game. Reminds me of Bugaboo the flea and Loco Roco. FREE MONEY.

JonB wrote:

I'm up for some Pikuniku. It's only a tenner even on Switch so I might grab it.

I've managed to get Pikuniku now as well. It's pretty great. Lots of surprising and funny little moments.

mrsmr2

Toastopia

JonB

Yes. Exactly those sort of moments. Also Baskick.

Facewon

Because I need a bit of a meatier game than I've been playing, I started Dandara.

Immediately excellent. Controls super super tight, clever mechanics, and balance seems spot on.

Metvania, with souls style progression, but NOT nails hard.

acemuzzy

You had me up till NOT

(I have this installed too, for some reason keep avoiding it but not quite sure why...)

Facewon

I'm half an hour in, it may get nails hard, but so far so balanced.

Moot_Geeza

I really wanted that pre-launch, then something put me off. Other games muscling it out the way perhaps. With so many new games arriving every month it's easy to assume stuff that doesn't set the world alight is doing something wrong. Case in point, I'm playing Mr. Shifty at the moment, which I think was one you enjoyed (and Nina)? It looks like my sort of thing, but it's fair to say opinions on that one have been mixed. A quick shufty at Metcritic shows 66, 70, 77 for Switch, PC and Bone, which let's be honesty is sitting at the very low end of well received. It's great though, I'm 9 stages in and I've got no real complaints.

NB: I'm not saying Metacritic 'Means Anything' past the point I'm trying to make, which is that many games not lauded by the majority of critics are often plenty of fun to play because the quality of 'above average' games has risen substantially. 'Fun if you like this sort of thing' carries far more weight than it did in the 90s.

Facewon

100%, Shifty is mint. Couple of annoying bits, but great.

Dandara has a similar reliance on accuracy using left stick which in the wrong hands can be so painful, but it nails it.

Shifty always felt so right to me when you nailed a javelin etc. Aiming spot on. Dandara is basically a game designed around 100% only being able to dash/jump from wall to wall or floor to floor, you literally can't walk or run or anything, but it nails it so far. Movement is fluid AF.

Could completely go to shit when it ramps up puzzles/difficulty etc, who knows, but so far, so good.

Moot_Geeza

Up to stage 12 on Shifty. It doesn't do much, but what it does is immensely satisfying. Very good.

Also on the go:

Smash Bros - nope
Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion - dlc of the year, one of the best things on Switch
Pokémon Let's Go - was quite enjoying it in co-op but drifted away
NSMBWiiU - as expected. Not loving it but it's solid co-op fun so far. Nabbit is a good addition for the younglings.

Facewon

Dandara, still, definitely ramps up difficulty, second major boss cooler than first, took a few goes, but the patterns and mechanics were cool.

Got stuck on nasty little random mini boss for a bit, but did it and as expected it opened up. A shot load of loose ends and powers. Great game.

Started The Surge. Early days, but much more impressive Sci fi souls than immortal unchained. Runs at a slick 60fps with crisp graphics. Tweaks to souls combat are cool and it just gets on with it. Be interested to see how the whole game holds up, because the proof of concept is there. And this has me happy the second one is out this year.

acemuzzy

I have all these games but have played none of them fml

Facewon

Lol. I've been in same boat, just managed. A good Jan of gaming. Would have finished more if spire wasn't a time sink.

The surge is super solid so far. Money's been thrown at it. Will be interesting to see size of it and if it screws the pooch with bosses or something.

Facewon

Another quick dabble with the surge. More quality. Went the agile over the tank, and glad I did. Very snappy and responsive. The right click to lock on and then option to choose target on body is cool. As is Rb being horizontal and RT being vertical attack, with length of button press dictating heavy or reg attack.

UI is a bit messy, but that's a quibble.

acemuzzy

I didn't think it reviewed that well? @andy hated it, maybe?? I think there's a sequel looking isn't there? Or is that lotf?

(Both are getting sequels, it turns out!)

Facewon

I don't recall great reviews. Yet to see a proper boss or how it expands out.

Facewon

First boss down. Was a good battle, learnable.

[Deleted User]

acemuzzy wrote:

@andy hated it, maybe??

I have a vague memory of struggling with the demo, but I haven’t played the full game. I loved Lords of the Fallen, though.

Facewon

Well, I started lords of the fallen and thought it was awful. The surge is definitely much better.

Digging in more now. Everything is there. Not quite sure how it's hanging together though.

Combat is enjoyable, but the grunts are getting a touch samey.

Voice acting is lol. Story is meh, but there's some nice touches.

Pretty sure, now I'm in the larger areas, it needs a map or a bit of work on distinguishing areas.

Being in a robot factory with, obviously, lots of samey industrial bits can make it hard to navigate.

The good thing there is how large the area is to explore, but some of the paths aren't that interesting (a bunch of stairs that don't go anywhere really, for instance)

I dunno, seems around the 75 mark was the metacritic gist. Probably going to be fair in the end. But it'll be a good 75.

acemuzzy

Reads like a 76

Yossarian

Halo 2 solo, legendary. Still got 4 or 5 levels to do, but this is undoubtedly the worst Halo and everything 343 have done is better than this.

GurtTractor

Halo 2 is one of my faves, better than 3.

Yossarian

On legendary it’s broken. The jackal snipers alone are enough to break it, but there have been plenty of other decisions alongside that which help to turn it into a frustrating, unsatisfying mess.

hylian_elf

GurtTractor wrote:

Halo 2 is one of my faves, better than 3.

Lol good one

GurtTractor

Far more memorable.

hunk

Halo2 (og) on legendary is definitely broken.
The snipers can snuff you out in a second with an instakill headshot. Annoying untill you figure out where they spawn. I also remember the buddy AI glitching out at 1 point and becoming unresponsive mid level while being swarmed by enemy flood lol. Still a good game though, enjoyed the mp a lot on Xbox live.

Dark Soldier

I thought legendary was the only way to play Halo games you absolute fannies

Yossarian

It is, which is why breaking legendary makes this the worst Halo.

Vela

I have nothing nice to say about Halo 2 or 3.

But Ace Combat 7 was installed yesterday and its glorious. Bright skies, ridiculous story, butter smooth.

ShabbyMcCrabby

Yossarian wrote:

On legendary it’s broken. The jackal snipers alone are enough to break it, but there have been plenty of other decisions alongside that which help to turn it into a frustrating, unsatisfying mess.

I played through this with a friend not too long ago and if he wasn't so keen on finishing it for the cheevos I would have quit. Just not fun at all. There was one bit I remember where you walk through a cave and into a big circular space with rock paths around the sides and snipers all about and it took a good 30 minutes to make any progress just walking into that room because you needed to kill the first sniper in one shot within around 2 seconds otherwise you were dead. Even if you knew where he spawned it was still hard because he wouldn't move the same each time and he was all the way over the other side.

Fucking woeful design.

Facewon

Slow down fellas. This is crazy talk.

H2 >>> absolutely every campaign 343 have done. Not even close.

Its deeply flawed, balance issues, etc, but it's heights are some of the best of the series. There's at least 3 top 10 halo levels in there. And probably 2 that are top 5.

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