Discussion The 2024 Games Thread

[GodisanAtheist]

dual SMGs were the best. damn that was such a cool moment when they showed that off at the E3(?) trailer.

-Partial to Plasma Rifle/SMG. Use the SMG on unshielded opponents, Plasma on Elites/shielded, and then spray and pray when you're overrun.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Fears to Fathom - Ironbark Lookout on Steam

Jack Nelson, a 24-year-old fire lookout, transferred to a new outpost. As he settled into his new home, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, little did he know what was transpiring down in Ironbark State Park.

store.steampowered.com

Price seems right.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Fears to Fathom - Ironbark Lookout on Steam

Jack Nelson, a 24-year-old fire lookout, transferred to a new outpost. As he settled into his new home, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, little did he know what was transpiring down in Ironbark State Park.

store.steampowered.com

Price seems right.

-Going to draw inevitable comparisons to Firewatch, looks like it's got a spooky X-files vibe to it though.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Beat Halo 2 Anniversary.

Fun ride, enjoyed the additional exposition in the story, forgot how much I actually enjoyed the Arbiter's side of the story and how much depth was added to the covenant out of nowhere.

Backstabbing, betrayals, heresy, political intrigue, ancient alien intelligences. Halo 2 went big on plot.

Gunplay was fast and furious. Vehicle sections (especially tank sections) were a fun power trip. Levels had less backtracking (although they still suffered from a lot of samey hallways).

Final boss was a bit of a damp squib though. Stood on a platform and took potshots at him till he died in about 5 minutes. Not exactly a thrilling conclusion to an otherwise excellent game.

Graphics in the Anniversary edition were fantastic. They did a good job capturing how the games looked in your minds eye from when you last played them. Played through the first level of Halo 3 and it's a bit of a shock that it looks so much worse than I remember.

Music, of course, was generally excellent when it was orchestral but then there were these lame rock tracks peppered in there. I vaguely recall there being licensed rock music but it wasn't in the MCC edition, maybe because the licenses expired and they put even lamer generic rock tracks in their place.

Honestly a little burned on the Halo formula after two games back to back. I've dipped my toes into Halo 3 and I know the campaign isn't long so maybe I'll play through that and take a break, but I'm just as inclined to try something else as well. We'll see how this goes.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Played through the first level of Halo 3 and it's a bit of a shock that it looks so much worse than I remember.

It's a 360 game from 2007. Your mind's eye needs to see the optometrist. 😛

Spoiler

Only gripe I have, is I hate the hive mind doing the villain monologuing when you go to save Cortana.

Other than that, love the game. Move on to Reach if you aren't feeling Master chef for the moment. Or, while some whinge about, try Infinite, I enjoyed the hell out of it. Really opened up the play style options to be more creative in combat. $10 for a month of game pass and maybe the kids will dig some games before the month is up. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge brings me back to the arcade days of my yoot, and is hella fun. You guys can co-op it.


This is cool, people are using reshade on Halo 3 to even simulate ray tracing -

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Playing Sifu; this game is hard. I need to replay earlier levels and bring my age down. Made it to the Japanese chick and she merked me while I have yet to master her pattern. I think my timing on weapons catch is off, need to get that down. I fight the enemies available in the training sim to get comfortable with their combos, but she is next level.

I need to settle down too. I blow past my attack windows sometimes. It is the first playthrough and was playing late last night, so I'll have some green tea(irl LOL) and try to get in the zone. For a while there, I was getting perfect blocks and dodges which set up unstoppable chain punches. I also keep thinking there is a better button layout than default, but I'll have to think about what I'd remap.

Story is generic; one of revenge for killing Sifu/teacher. It reminds me of Kill Bill and Old Boy put together. The game puts you in the hallway fight camera position from Old Boy at times. Props to the game designer for the homage, it's epic and atmospheric. The graphics have an old school art style I like just fine. The combat ensures you ain't sight seeing anyways.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Started Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader. Just finished the prologue.

Can be played either Mouse+keyboard, or controller. Highly, highly recommend mouse and keyboard. Enjoying the turn-based combat and different squad members so far.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

This is the first single player game where the latency of the BT Xbox controller is an issue. I usually adjust quickly to a game; Wo Long: Fallen dynasty for instance. Sifu not so much. I am confident my timing is there, but it's often a little late. I think I will buy a wired controller for games like this. I hate keyboard and mouse for fighting games. It feels wrong.

Beat the game by using most of my XP to buy lives back instead of skills. The Lucy Lui stand in (we fought in the snow like in Kill Bill) and the final boss, were super tough. Controller makes it feel like I am more lucky than good when I perfect dodge and block and get a counter in during a boss fight.

Conclusion: Fun and worth it for $20 or less. Game is short, and you are expected to keep replaying, so not worth more unless you are a sweaty.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

This is the first single player game where the latency of the BT Xbox controller is an issue. I usually adjust quickly to a game; Wo Long: Fallen dynasty for instance. Sifu not so much. I am confident my timing is there, but it's often a little late. I think I will buy a wired controller for games like this. I hate keyboard and mouse for fighting games. It feels wrong.

Beat the game by using most of my XP to buy lives back instead of skills. The Lucy Lui stand in (we fought in the snow like in Kill Bill) and the final boss, were super tough. Controller makes it feel like I am more lucky than good when I perfect dodge and block and get a counter in during a boss fight.

Conclusion: Fun and worth it for $20 or less. Game is short, and you are expected to keep replaying, so not worth more unless you are a sweaty.

- Instead of a whole new controller just get a micro-USb to USB-A cable to turn your wireless Xbox controller into a wired one.

Like $6 instead of $60...

Maybe Sifu's controls are just off and it's for nothing to do with wireless/BT...

 

[SteveGrabowski]

This is the first single player game where the latency of the BT Xbox controller is an issue. I usually adjust quickly to a game; Wo Long: Fallen dynasty for instance. Sifu not so much. I am confident my timing is there, but it's often a little late. I think I will buy a wired controller for games like this. I hate keyboard and mouse for fighting games. It feels wrong.

Beat the game by using most of my XP to buy lives back instead of skills. The Lucy Lui stand in (we fought in the snow like in Kill Bill) and the final boss, were super tough. Controller makes it feel like I am more lucky than good when I perfect dodge and block and get a counter in during a boss fight.

Conclusion: Fun and worth it for $20 or less. Game is short, and you are expected to keep replaying, so not worth more unless you are a sweaty.

I couldn't imagine playing Sifu with a Bluetooth controller on Windows. Windows has to have the crappiest Bluetooth implementation I have ever seen and even with the best BT dongle I have ever used (Asus BT-500 USB) any controller I use on BT with it feels noticably laggy even if I have the dongle sitting in a direct line of sight two feet from the controller. I never have anything approaching the same lag playing my Switch that uses Bluetooth also. Even my crappy Raspberry Pi 3B handled Bluetooth controllers so much better than Windows. I use a wired XBox controller for most PC games or wire up my DualSense for Playstation games that support it so I don't get a worse experience than console gamers.

Didn't know you could buy lives back with XP. Some of my favorite combat in recent history though, loved Sifu. Definitely a great buy at $20 for the next 11 hours it's on sale lol.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I liked Persona 3 Reload so much I think I'm going to have to buy Persona 5 for a third time when the Steam sale kicks off this week as it'll probably drop to $30. Been itching to replay it again but don't want to play at 30 fps which my PS4 copy of Persona 5 Royal is locked to since Atlus offered no upgrade path for PS5 other than buy the game again. Plus the Steam version I can do a Japanese playthrough of Royal and mod it to make the Persona 5 base game battle theme (Last Surprise) the ambush theme instead of the new one they made for the game (Take Over), which I thought was the only weakness of Royal vs the original P5.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Ugh probably shouldn't have bought Final Fantasy VII Rebirth at launch full price when I don't want to play it and want to play Persona again instead lol

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I couldn't imagine playing Sifu with a Bluetooth controller on Windows. Windows has to have the crappiest Bluetooth implementation I have ever seen and even with the best BT dongle I have ever used (Asus BT-500 USB) any controller I use on BT with it feels noticably laggy even if I have the dongle sitting in a direct line of sight two feet from the controller. I never have anything approaching the same lag playing my Switch that uses Bluetooth also. Even my crappy Raspberry Pi 3B handled Bluetooth controllers so much better than Windows. I use a wired XBox controller for most PC games or wire up my DualSense for Playstation games that support it so I don't get a worse experience than console gamers.

Didn't know you could buy lives back with XP. Some of my favorite combat in recent history though, loved Sifu. Definitely a great buy at $20 for the next 11 hours it's on sale lol.

The MediaTek/AMD wifi6E&BT5.2 on the B550 AORUS ELITE AX V2 is the best I've ever used. It's m.2. I would have gotten an PCIe expansion card if it wasn't included with the board. USB wifi on AM4 can be too janky. As stated this is the first game where I can feel it is an issue.

And yes I knew about buying back lives. It is the first line of the second paragraph of the post you quoted. If you hadn't rushed into the rant about MS and BT you'd have noticed it. 🤣 But I do enjoy a good rant 5/7.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

- Instead of a whole new controller just get a micro-USb to USB-A cable to turn your wireless Xbox controller into a wired one.

Like $6 instead of $60...

Maybe Sifu's controls are just off and it's for nothing to do with wireless/BT...

I didn't even think of that. I have a 2 port USB hub on this ROCCAT lapboard I use, I'll just plug it in there and see if it helps. Thanks my dude.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

And yes I knew about buying back lives. It is the first line of the second paragraph of the post you quoted.

Huh? That's why I was reacting to it lol. Didn't know you could do that until reading your post. I played it at launch and don't think they allowed you to do that at the time.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Huh? That's why I was reacting to it lol. Didn't know you could do that until reading your post. I played it at launch and don't think they allowed you to do that at the time.

Right on, my bad.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Wasn't gonna get the Games Done Quick Humble Bundle but then I saw the trailer for Gylt and just had to buy.

Save 50% on GYLT on Steam

Shape your fears… Fear the shapes. Embark on a journey where you face your worst fears and are confronted with the emotional impact of your actions in this narrative adventure game with puzzles, stealth and action.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Played nightingale last night. So far it is fun.
Combat feels good, haven’t built much but that feels right so far.
It is a survival game, it seems like lots of “stuff” is needed to craft.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Kids are going with their mom and my inlaws on a little ski trip so I'll have the place to myself for a few days.

They've insisted that I don't play Halo 3 while they're not here, so I downloaded a few even less child appropriate games to try out:

Shadow of War
Dragons Dogma
Prototype 2

I'll probably sample each before settling on one to play.

Heard great things about Shadow of War and we're on a bit of a LOTR kick with Rings of Power and The Hobbit Movies (and I really enjoyed SoM) so looking forward to that.

Dragons Dogma of course with all the hype around DD2 right now I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm reading that its a strong love it or hate it kind of game, where if you like the gameplay you're in and if you don't you'll bounce off hard. Not much meat in terms of narrative, story, or interesting open world so I'm skeptical but I'll give it a fair shake.

Prototype 2... I *loved* Prototype 1 and stayed away from 2 thanks to some powerful fanboy hate, but it looks like the majority of issues with the game stem from some boneheaded narrative choices and not really the gameplay which many think is improved over the first. Considering the first game had a pretty ramshackle story and was carried by its superb gameplay I'm not to worried about liking this one. Supposed to be pretty short too.

 

[igor_kavinski]

so I downloaded a few even less child appropriate games to try out:

Get Catherine!!!

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Get Catherine!!!

- Thanks for the recommendation, but I don't own it, and I only buy games during the winter sale so I can meter how many new games I'm picking up vs my backlog.

I just don't have that much time to game (probably a handful of hours a week) and I've made it a goal to actually experience and enjoy my library of 200+ games instead of simply collecting more like some kind of digital hoarder.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Get Catherine!!!

Speaking of Atlus, don't get Persona 4 Golden though if you have an AMD gpu. Ugh starting replaying that a couple of days ago and the constant random crashes are so annoying, especially after a 30 minute boss fight followed by a 10 minute unskippable cutscene with no opportunity to save before the pos crashes. One of my favorite games ever made but first time I have played it on an AMD card and apparently it's a bug that has just been left in the game for two years now that it's outside its initial sales window.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Speaking of Atlus, don't get Persona 4 Golden though if you have an AMD gpu.

Fixed in V1.04 apparently?

https://www.reddit.com/r/persona4golden/comments/vvnne3/psa_persona_4_golden_crashing_solution_for_amd

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Fixed in V1.04 apparently?

https://www.reddit.com/r/persona4golden/comments/vvnne3/psa_persona_4_golden_crashing_solution_for_amd

EDIT: Have the newest version and this crap still happens. I'm not downgrading my drivers because Atlus screwed up their port. Tried pirating an old version to see if it would do better than the one I bought on Steam and it crashes 100% of the time too, just in another place, can't freaking win with this game. I'm going to see if Steam will refund this pos despite me being 55 hours into a playthrough.

 

[DaaQ]

Anyone played the Terminator games? Specifically Terminator Resistance? Or input on Dark Fate?

Should I grab Cyberpunk 2077 @ $29.99?
Or Dragons Dogma? Also Stellaris?
Anyone have input on those? besides Cyberpunk? Is the xpac official?

Took a look at Enshrouded, Still early access, burnt by Star Citizen. although I still have the 40 buck starter on that.