Video Games General

[Madgizmo99]

Playing through the demo for Echoes of Aincrad. So far its covering the tutorial/prologue which appropriately takes place in the beta test. There is definitely an appreciation for detail from the devs, they are clearly fans. The menu is in fact the in game SAO menu complete with logout button, which you can't actually use but I like that they added it solely to take it away later when the main plot actually starts. At the end of the starting tutorial dungeon you fight Illfang, which is a little weird since he's the floor boss, not a dungeon one, but yeah, i'm guessing they will justify it somehow. Also, he decidedly was not using a Nodachi, though he also wasn't using a Tulwar but that might just be the devs not knowing what a Tulwar looks like.

So far I'm having fun. While I actually like Kirito as a character (and man does the anime do a poor job with his internal monologue), its nice playing someone who isn't him and can see the Beater/Black Swordsman from the outside when the time comes.

 

[Raeck]

Finished vanilla Atomic Heart and onto the first of the DLC.

Dewdrop, fittingly for possibly being the final boss if you don't take a certain route, is challenging, but not exactly difficult. Fast bastard though, and smaller than the Hog-7, which made it slightly more difficult to hit. Apparently, when it's not firing its laser or it hasn't exposed its tentacles during the second phase, it's invulnerable to damage? I didn't noticem but that's what a couple places say.

Left, and then both the Twins, are appropriately cinematic considering they're the intended actual final boss. Kinda easy though, since it seems like you really only need to worry about killing one of the girls to win the fight.

The BEA-D Colossus is the first boss of the Annihilation Instinct DLC, or at least the first one I've seen, and compared to every other boss so far is a son of a bitch. Three phases, waves of enemies after each one, the boss likes to belly flop on top of you, it has an AOE slam attack, it can throw out area denial mines, and there's no checkpoint at all, so if you die you have to start from the beginning. It just feels like an unfair spike in difficulty? I dunno.

Also, I love that some variation of Resident Evil and Bioshock are taking place in this 'verse.

 

[D'znn-Xy'lll MetaChthonia]

As per Rule 8 Point 3: If in your Opinion my Post in any capacity, shape, and/or form Violates Rule 5, 8, or 9 then inform me so I may Delete the Post. Check Signature for further elaboration. Assistance is appreciated. Asking about the Content Disclaimer will be treated as being Informed of a Rule 5 Violation on my part.

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theHunter:
Well, looks like I have to Uninstall it now. Its become prohibitively large and I bought this computer for Games (PLURAL) not Game (SINGULAR). They really need to stop shoving all the DLCs into the Base Game with them being needed to be bought to unlock and make them need to be DLCs and not whatever the frick this sh!te is or find better compression.

Opus Magnum:
Final Journal was added. Wow this one is complicated. Even a massive one the size of the screen that's an infinite creation. Not even gonna attempt that one. Already have trouble losing what I'm doing halfway through on the smaller projects.

Blood West: Scavenegers
I still wanna pet da kitty. Kute kitty needs scritches. Thought the lil buddy needed scritches and paps and boops when I first saw 'em in the Painter's cart. Wish the kitty was a proper trader so we can pay 'em in scitches and catnip and cursed grass. Also finally got SHODAN and Caleb but whatever. Also listening to Old Gods Of Appalachia while Playing this now. Can confirm now that the wendigoes gain invulnerability on glass cannons sometimes. Their chest skulls sometimes pop off from the HP being set to 1 and this retroactively resets them to max HP. Although with hellbears you should always only shoot them in the back on glass cannon missions. Their heads hard lock their HP.

Shapez 2
The recent updates highlighting different features unintentionally gave me an answer for the central paint mixer factory to not only maximize effiency but also to set it up. I had completely forgotten the launchers were on the same level not different levels meaning I can slot in the mixers using launchers to bypass pipes with other fluids at most reasonable distances. Also needing to now and go back to my templates to redesign them with the launchers in mind.

 

[Melmar]

Huh a Queen's Blade game in whatever the fuck this year even is. Played a demo for it on Steam.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVYg-WKfK1w

It's... actually not bad. Real time card based roguelike (with optional turn based at the cost of less XP gain) with cards gaining one increment towards an attack per round. Damage is Yugioh style where a cards defense points don't get reset every round like Magic the Gathering. No outright nudity but the characters' clothes get damaged when they take direct damage.

 

[Hunter 1]

They really need to stop shoving all the DLCs into the Base Game with them being needed to be bought to unlock and make them need to be DLCs and not whatever the frick this sh!te is or find better compression.

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Oh, the logic behind why they do that is simple.

theHunter makes map DLC work on a "only the host needs to own it" system. That obviously doesn't mean much for singleplayer, but in multiplayer, well, it makes it much easier to get a group together when all you need to ask is "do you have the game downloaded and patched" instead of "do you have the game downloaded, patched, and all the needed DLC downloaded and updated?"

And in that kind of setup, the only way to ensure that all the players have the DLC is either a, release free compatibility DLC for each map and check for it, or b, just stuff all the relevant DLC assets into patches for the base game and make the purchased DLC stuff that's only needed if you own the DLC (so at worst, it's a unlock token).

Stuff like weapons and gear would need to work on similar methods; either the game host and all the other players would need to have the relevant DLC (or matching compatibility DLC), or the required assets just get added to the base game as part of a patch (with assets not needed if you don't own the DLC only coming with the DLC).

Although I will agree with you, that game is getting big... but I guess that's to be expected from a game that the devs both want to look good and be a thing that lasts a console generation or two.

Hopefully they're not doing that stupid "store multiple copies of the game on disk to speed up disk reads" thing that I know some devs have taken to doing; not only does it only make sense for cases where the game is installed on HDDs (where "seek time" is a thing, unlike newer SSDs), some devs have actually tested it and proven that it doesn't really help (and certainly not enough to justify the disk space used by the extra copies).

 

[Malcolmo]

Huh a Queen's Blade game in whatever the fuck this year even is. Played a demo for it on Steam.

It's... actually not bad. Real time card based roguelike (with optional turn based at the cost of less XP gain) with cards gaining one increment towards an attack per round. Damage is Yugioh style where a cards defense points don't get reset every round like Magic the Gathering. No outright nudity but the characters' clothes get damaged when they take direct damage.

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I'd been keeping an eye out on it since last year and tried the demo for it. It wasn't bad, dunno if they kept the difficulty down for the demo or not but still decent. Seem to be going with yet another different take on the initial Reina plotline but that's nothing new for QB at this point. Curious to see what they go with for Airi and Tomoe. That and how long it takes someone to rip all the card art because it seems fairly decent.

 

[Melmar]

I'd been keeping an eye out on it since last year and tried the demo for it. It wasn't bad, dunno if they kept the difficulty down for the demo or not but still decent. Seem to be going with yet another different take on the initial Reina plotline but that's nothing new for QB at this point. Curious to see what they go with for Airi and Tomoe. That and how long it takes someone to rip all the card art because it seems fairly decent.

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I cleared the chapter and concluded that I probably needed a couple more support cards to balance things out. Barriers, dp restoration, something to help keep the stronger Leina cards in play longer since she seems to built around buffing her own cards.

 

[Malcolmo]

I cleared the chapter and concluded that I probably needed a couple more support cards to balance things out. Barriers, dp restoration, something to help keep the stronger Leina cards in play longer since she seems to built around buffing her own cards.

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My problem meanwhile was needing more useful weenies to handle the early turns vs things like the goblin so they stop chipping me down. Otherwise my cards seemed to last long enough even if I wasn't constantly buffing them. They are meant to be expendable overall after all.

 

[Melmar]

My problem meanwhile was needing more useful weenies to handle the early turns vs things like the goblin so they stop chipping me down. Otherwise my cards seemed to last long enough even if I wasn't constantly buffing them. They are meant to be expendable overall after all.

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I kept getting dinged with piercing damage from silver cards and I didn't have many myself.

 

[D'znn-Xy'lll MetaChthonia]

As per Rule 8 Point 3: If in your Opinion my Post in any capacity, shape, and/or form Violates Rule 5, 8, or 9 then inform me so I may Delete the Post. Check Signature for further elaboration. Assistance is appreciated. Asking about the Content Disclaimer will be treated as being Informed of a Rule 5 Violation on my part.

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Forgot to mention this one earlier:

The Lift
Getting all sorts of impatient waiting for it to at least reach Early Access (assuming it doesn't jump directly into release instead). Won't come out till 2027 sadly. Meh, I'll have a new yearly Video Game budget then so I guess it's for the best. For Reference it's basically in line with Hardspace. SCP like facility suffered some dimensional instability breach at an unknown point in the past, you're a rando handyman they put on ice in case they need extra maintenance teams and stasis is the safest place for you, unfortunately events lined up to leave you accidentally abandoned during the evac and because the shutdown can't complete as long as a single living being is left behind it caused a catastrophic domino event. Now you're putting the facility back together again one bolt at a time so it can hopefully fix everything.
Here's someone doing a recent playtest. Can also see it's accumulating bugs like not being able to bend the wires or the audio not playing. But the point of a playtest is to catch these things. If anything their mere Exist is a sign that they are most certainly Developing the Game.

Spoiler: Video

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7IrWhi8rwLQ

 

[Malcolmo]

I kept getting dinged with piercing damage from silver cards and I didn't have many myself.

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Iirc you only get dinged by silvers if your card loses so it's just a matter of having good enough stats to win the trades. I honestly didn't really focus on silvers and just went for winning board.