The fight for democracy begins again! 
Only played 45 mins so far, just one mission, man it’s tough alone with the third-person camera! Bugs coming at ya from all angles!
(At one point I was injured, so I dove off a rock to take cover, smacked my head into a steel wall and died. Damn lmao.)
Finished Far Cry 6 main story last week and all side quests yesterday. The add on side quest - Vaas:Insanity, Pagan:Control and Joseph:Collapse is yet to complete.
The main story ending was somewhat better than I anticipated.
There was two special dlc missions which was good -
One of the best part in FC6 was this flying car with granade launcher -
Today I got this free open beta notification from FC6 main menu screen and I tried the first few minutes of Skull and Bones.
I was confused at first but then I realised it is a pirate simulation game with real players around me.
Sharing some experience from Skull and Bones Open Beta -
The Open Beta is free to download and play till 11/12 Feb 2024, check it out -
Sailing my first ship - basic boat :
Met some online players :
A cinematic screenshot :
Overall I think it is going to be one of a flagship game from ubisoft and may compete with heavy weights like Elden Ring. The map size is going to be a huge one I guess.
This game may be a nominee at next game awards.
Note: I am not sure if it is ok to upload open beta screenshots, let me know if it is not allowed.
I’ve played a couple of highly-regarded indie games that came out late last year.
Chants of Sennaar is a great little puzzle game where you decipher glyph-like languages using nothing but context clues. It’s very open-ended and rewards patience and careful consideration of everything–from the shapes of the glyphs to the people who use them–to produce some of the most rewarding light-bulb moments. Figuring out that word that everyone’s been using or realizing that the guy who was speaking complete gibberish 20 minutes ago now makes total sense is really satisying. And the art style is cool, too.
And I’m only a few hours in to Jusant, but it’s a fantastic meditative climbing game. After an ecological disaster, you climb up an enormous cliff, exploring the ruins of the civilization that was left behind as you go. The climbing is methodical and varied, often with multiple paths toward your destination, helped along by a long rope, pitons you can place almost anywhere to act as de facto checkpoints and some cool rappelling/swinging mechanics. It’s got a bit of jank, particularly when you aren’t actively climbing, but it’s weirdly relaxing and I’m curious to see what happens when you get towards the top of the cliff.
Coincidentally, Game Maker’s Toolkit did excellent videos on both games recently. (As I recall, I first heard about both games on the Noclip podcast.)
Alright, Helldivers 2 first impressions. I managed to play about 3 hours last night I think.
I feel so sorry for Arrowhead that they somehow just really weren’t prepared for the massive influx of people playing day one.
It’s now the biggest PS Studios launch on PC, with a peak of I think over 70k people on Steam yesterday! (Also the first simultaneous PS5/PC first-party release too!)
They really shoulda had a beta though because wow it’s astonishing how media previews seemed perfectly fine and had zero mention of match issues or crashing. The community is really overloading the servers lol oof.
The game is effectively single-player only this weekend as they work to fix and improve their servers for now. Quickplay is broken, it finds matches but can’t connect you to the lobby/match.
There is unfortunately no manual game browser to find open groups, though sometimes they’ll appear on your world map, but joining that is also broken. 
I DID manage to have two people join me yesterday while I was preparing for a mission on the ship, and got through a whole mission with them. But any attempts from me to connect to others has met with errors or disconnecting mid-loading screen.
Edit: oh yeah I totally forgot to mention THE MUSIC in here, oh man it’s GLORIOUS!
Really feels like you’re fighting for Lady Democracy herself! 
They got a great main theme that plays when you drop in, and the epic combat music is great fun adding to the atmosphere.
Gameplay
This is damn fun and a great twist on the original game’s horde-type systems and combat. Bugs up-close are freaky and you can quickly get overwhelmed from the sides or behind if you aren’t being vigilant. (As a solo player, this game is VERY tough when all the enemies are coming for just you)
You can find a variety of planets in the game with different biomes, though for me I only played the two Bug planets available. A snowy mountainous planet and a lush foresty-planet.
It’s been confirmed there’s a desert type planet, I think the Bot faction currently has a red salt flats type planet, I’m interested to see how biomes open up. Seems we have a smaller selection at a time and for a longer time since planets take longer to liberate. (After almost 20 hours after launch, I still saw the same planets under siege all day)
They really put the term “hell-diving” to good use. The Dive option is essentially like a good dodge, but can be risky as getting back up to standing can be a little slow, especially if you dive off a ledge or into a rock, which can ragdoll you a bit.
The objectives to complete are more complex than the last game’s “only input direction codes”.
This time, most tasks need secondary inputs around the area like: “turning on the terminal with inputs, then aligning the satellite to the required direction, then back to the terminal to complete the code”
It can be VERY tough solo since you have to juggle all that with enemies swarming in sometimes, and can easily get snuck up on while looking at the terminal. But it’s possible, if you can reach enough of a lull in enemy waves coming in to finish it.
Monetization
It sucks that this game is victim to many common GaaS practices, but its nice that Sony allowed the devs to include options to not spend any extra money whatsoever on the game, or at least not too much.
For one thing, Super Credits can be earned in-game by playing missions and finding small caches with some in them. They come in 10s (though there is a bunker-type cache that needs 2 people to open, no idea if that gives you more) and if you explore each map to its fullest then you’ll be able to earn at least 30-40 per hour or two I’d say. (they give you a 40-min time limit to roam around, finish the mission, and hopefully not die)
Never heard of a GaaS game giving people the option to earn the premium currency through the main gameplay loop.
There’s also the launch Battle Pass essentially, which – if you can get enough medals out of missions, you can unlock 950 SC from, which will net you the current Premium pass if you find a couple more in-missions for 1k SC.
(No idea what other passes might cost, as the Premium one only has 3 pages and gives you 350 SC by the end – but comes with access to variants of guns like incendiary shotgun or grenade launcher I think. But it’s said it will vary.)
Also, while the Super Store (shop section) sucks in that it is a FOMO draw with a rotating store, the items are relatively cheap. Cosmetic Helmets costing as little as 75 SC (basically 75cents and easily earnable) or I think 200/300 for armours with stats and perks.
Definitely reasonable and earnable with some time, and not egregiously expensive – as I’ve heard Sony’s recent Foamstars game is selling cosmetic bundles for more than the actual price of the base game.
All in all, this is a good like 7/10 game, very fun, a little simple and difficult on your own, but from what I know from the first game, you’re meant to have people drop in and drop out of your missions to help, and that’s just not possible right now.
Could be an 8/10 or higher once these issues get fixed.
Drawbacks/Issues
I’m sure I’ll have more to post once I’m able to play some more, this is just based on the limited amount I played yesterday morning and night.
(Note: I’m on a weekend vacation now so I won’t be able to try it some more until next week)
Update: a hotfix has been posted to Steam that has apparently fixed 80% of the quickplay issues, and the PS5 should get a patch later today to fix it up to that too, they just have to get through Sony certification first.
Okay, so now I really am pretty much done with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League! I’ve reached Rank 102 in Finite Crisis, the endgame mode, and unlocked the golden color swatches for the characters!
Honestly it wasn’t that bad. I only had three mission fails the whole time playing, and I wasn’t even really trying to build my characters for a specific strategy. However, it certainly was repetitive. You play a few mission types in the overworld (Off the top of my head I can think of 6, there might be a few more) to gather Promethium to spend to unlock 3 Incursion missions on Earth-2.
The Incursion missions are the same types you can also encounter in the overworld, just at a higher difficulty (more kills needed, more points to defend, etc.). The Mastery levels for each mission add modifiers and make the enemies tougher, and that really starts to compound. By like Mastery 20 on the missions, the enemies had started to be absurd bullet sponges, to the point where I stopped bothering to fight Brutes or choppers and just avoided them instead.
In addition to the three Incursion missions, there’s also Killing Time, with both normal and Hardcore versions. This is just an endless mode where you keep on fighting enemies until you choose to leave. You can also re-do the final Boss Fight against Brainiac with its own Mastery levels, but the loot rewards really aren’t that much better to make it worth it. Also, for some reason these missions don’t increase your overall Finite Crisis rank, even though they’d help mitigate some of the repetitive nature of ranking up.
The endgame still was pretty fun though, even at higher levels. I don’t think you’re really meant to binge the mode, rather play the game for a couple hours then take a break and come back later. Yes the endgame could use more variety, but the variety issues will be a lot less when the seasons start coming around with both new mission types and new environments to do the missions in.
I have a bit more stuff to do, I don’t have all of the Infamous weapons unlocked yet, and there’s still plenty Master versions of weapons to unlock which have the max specs. I also need to play for 4 more consecutive days to get the Julian Gregory Day weapon doll. I’m only Squad level 20, but that’s because I got each character to Level 30. Super excited to see what’s in store for Season 1 when that comes out in 4 or so weeks!
I loved Chants of Sennaar I finished it in 2 days. But It was so much better than i imagined. the translating and interpreting the symbols was so much fun to me. I’m glad to see other people are liking it too. 
There’s a game called Heaven’s Vault which has the same gameplay premise centred on deciphering a language. Ever played that? (I have it in my backlog - wanna try both it and CoS)
I’ve seen Heaven’s Vault mentioned a couple of places, including the GMTK video. It looked interesting enough that I added it to my wishlist, but that list is long so I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to get around to it.
Finished Mass Effect 3 on Insanity.
Giving me both the Insanity III and the Long Service achievement.
It was a good ride. (the best)
Like many, I do not like the ending (I have an immense dislike for the starchild, it’s Bethesda level of writing).
But, I still consider Mass Effect 3 to be the best of the trilogy.
I appreciate the fact that, like Mass Effect 2 in a way, the game fully assumes its theme, and allow everything to be about it. Mass effect 2 was building a team for a mission, Mass Effect 3 is about a total war.
It’s something that I miss from this era of games : games could release in a 3 year window, so were ready to have a distinct assumed theme, and aesthetic variation, and not forced to be generalist to stand for as long as possible.
The crew interactions were improved over ME2, more numerous, more organic, better designed too (no need to enter conversation to see if something new was triggered, barks do fine)…
The trilogy-long story arcs nail the landing. The game can be narratively optimized (and I did), but the number of variations is honestly stunning.
The mobility of the combat is better than ME2, slightly faster too, and with better variety of build.
But I do miss ME2 way of handling shield/barrier/armour. It demanded better assessment, and awareness. It was more deliberate, and demanded more multi-stepped engagement.
Finally, the greatest dialogue wheel of the trilogy :
“I’ve been waiting for this!”
11 days late and some uncertainity but my collector’s edition of Persona 3 Reload finally arrived today. Not really happy with how Amazon handled this but whatever, it’s finally here, it’s undamaged. Once I clean up my living room I plan to display this on my shelves.
After my last post on this thread I actually caved and bought the standard version of Persona 3 Reload, I’ve actually played like half the game already. I don’t really doing that though, I’ve been stuck at home the last week and have just gone back to work today, albeit part time. The collector’s edition has a sealed normal copy of the game inside so plan to sell that off and just replace it with the version I’ve already bought and opened, and hopefully recoup most of the money from the standard version I bought a week ago. I guess a bit of a sad thing to do, but honestly, I don’t regret it.
This is a gorgeous, faithful remake of Persona 3. I enjoyed playing Persona 3 Portable on an emulator a year and a half ago, but I must admit I didn’t quite enjoy it to the extent of Persona 4 Golden or Persona 5 Royal, part of it being the limitations that P3P had to make to get the game running on the Playstation Portable. Reload being a current gen title, with a ton of voice acting, including every social link and nearly every cutscene being fully voiced adds so much to the story telling experience. Not to mention all the various quality of life improvements in the gameplay and modern touches in the fights, dungeons, and fusion. I may never love Tartarus honestly but this version at least has a lot of nice touches, tweaks, and twists for Tartarus so that it is a lot less monotonus.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on Reload if you ever get around to it @Freezer since I know you’re a big P3 fan. In the meantime, I’m having a lot of fun with this.
Not playing it YET! But the Tomb Raider Remasters… I’ve prepurchased for the Switch. I’m wondering when the files for these will start downloading (like a preload). Or will they start downloading when the game finally goes live this Wednesday? 
From what I’ve seen (re: the “remastered” levels) looks great so far. Can’t wait to… Dive in.
And if I should attempt a playthrough marathon with no deaths 
I’m pretty sure 2 will give me the hardest time.
I am playing Vaas - Insanity and the performance of Michael Mando (Vaas Montenegro) is credible.
This clip is one of the best moment I felt in the level -
This short play has deep meaning especially in International Politics 
Re: TR Remastered. Well, I haven’t gotten that far. Maybe it’s not a good idea to not save. 1st playthrough I made it all the way up to St. Francis’ Folly and fall from the top because I got the roll and jump buttons mixed up. 
2 more deaths and a soft lock bug later I get back up to St. FF again, get a message that I’ll need to go into work on my night off and save and exit.
The controller I’m using… I dunno. I suppose I’ll have to connect that Saturn dual analog controller to my Switch and see if I can set the buttons to something that feels familiar. Again, the controller I’m using… Its layout is similar to the PS, but I guess I don’t remember what orientation those buttons were in.
I suppose I can find my old PS game discs, pop it into my PS2… assuming the old memory cards still work, and see what the button arrangement was on one of those games.
Maybe this helps?
kay well I finished RE3 Remake tonight!
It was… good! Just good, really. It was a pretty darn linear action-horror title, lots of scenes where Nemesis attacks but it’s all clearly scripted or for dramatic effect, but overall I enjoyed the ride and loved seeing Jill’s resilience against Nemesis just coming back again, and again, and again, and even again!!
Jill feels like the ultimate Final Girl. Like she escaped the horrors in RE1, but still they keep tracking her down, almost as unstoppable as she is. Love her uber-powerful skillset lol.
God damn, the game is gorgeous. That RE Engine is amazing, their artists are amazing. It all looks very high-quality and realistic. Damn good job.
Oh yeah, I also played the game with Ray Tracing on for those sweet shadows and accurate lighting. Spooky AF, plus the game mostly ran at/close to 60fps. IDK why because RE2 wasn’t like that, but this is indeed a smaller game I guess.
The gore was turned down for some reason in this entry compared to the first, but the zombies and other monsters were still really ugly and gross-looking.
I liked that the “Regenerating” enemies near the end match the same style as the “Mold Regenerator” enemies in RE7 DLC. Very pale, blistering skin, but a lot of steam comes out of their body to show you they’re healing themselves. It’s a pretty cool detail to unify the games’ monster/ability continuity.
I really liked seeing/hearing Jeff Schine in this game as Carlos.
I haven’t heard that guy since he played Javier in the Walking Dead! Dude’s got a really cool voice, and he played a kind of great wingman who’s actually one of the very few nice UBCS soldiers.
Overall, I enjoyed my time. I got spooked a lot. I like that it’s short since it means if ever I want to play it again it’s not a big time-sink, but the pacing does feel pretty damn weird in the game.
There’s a moment where Jill gets poisoned and knocked out, and I think “ohh, I’m gonna jump back to Carlos for some gameplay to fill the time”
Nope. The game cuts to “roughly half a day later”. LMAO what?? Jill is just left unconscious for some reason for like 10 hours!
Since I’m done this now, I think I’ll try out Going Under for my next single-player romp. Been in my backlog for a while, I need to get to it. The deaths in RE3 frustrated me, but I’m in the mood for a good roguelike where even deaths feel like some sort of progress (and each new life brings another randomized dungeon)
A good 8 of those deaths were in the Nemesis Stage 2 fight in the Underground Lab. Damn, man. I loaded myself up on bullets and few health items, and I never got a good hang on dodging.
Since the internet was mostly down for us yesterday and I was sick and resting on the couch, I did manage to set-up my laptop nearby, a controller, and started playing the original Assassins Creed from 2007 that I bought/downloaded earlier this week for 5$.
Oh yeah first of all, it’s funny how this game has every NPC using some french or italian, or syrian dialect, but Altair is generic american voice man. He’s also… very flat in his delivery 
Also this game has Nolan North as Miles?? Before he became a massive success I guess?? Wow.
It’s… uh, “good”?
What surprised me the most is that this is much different from Ubisoft’s modern “open-world-extravaganza” titles. You start off the game in a small area, finish a few main missions, then have to ride on horseback to an even bigger, proper “open-world-ish” area of Damascus. You can climb towers and Sync to reveal an area of the map as well as “main tasks and side tasks”(and the side tasks are extremely simple and repetitive: save a citizen, then you unlock some special NPCs in the area to help avoid guards) – and that’s essentially all it does.
It’s strange. It feels like this is mostly a linear adventure, that happens to have a larger world to run around in freely, but is definitely not the type of game Ubisoft is known and mocked for today.
It’s a bare-bones version of it, which is a little unexpected.
What surprised me the most here is that they actually start you super-powerful for the beginning of the game and then strip you of all your skills to build them back up again. (combat counters, extra damage, breaking your fall in parkour -things like that) That was surprising and a bit sad.
What I don’t quite like is that there’s a “social stealth” system, but it’s incredibly sensitive. You have to hold a button and walk veeeery slowly when you’re on ground-level to avoid guard’s suspicions (and they will always be suspicious of you if you aren’t holding this button) You can mitigate this by going across rooftops – and man, it’s quite fun, albeit a little janky and incredibly specific where/how you can climb a building…
It’s also weirdly archaic in terms of mechanics and settings. Which I feel like might be why there isn’t a remaster of this game on modern consoles because it would require lots of extra work to improve.
But I am intrigued enough to keep going, and heck, if I decide to keep my PS Extra subscription, then hopefully I’ll still be able to tackle other beloved, more fleshed-out titles in the series like AC2.
Playing through the tomb raider remaster. It feels like a vault of core childhood memories to me. I was always shit at them and used cheats lol.
But not this time! At 32, I’m finally able to play these games the proper way. Blind, getting stuck, figuring shit out and get that sweet dopamine release.
I beat 1 and just now, 2 also. 2 has insane levels of old game bullshit but I love the experience all the same. 1 was a blast to play through. 3 was always my favourite so I cant wait to start it tomorrow. (I’ve cheated a little and played the first level 5 times while doing 1 and 2 lmao, its too good)
And maybe I’m weird but those new textures does absolutely nothing for me so I play almost exclusively in old school mode. With tank controls, like it was meant to be. 10/10 gaming 
