What are you playing right now?

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I had a dig at Hollow Knight previously after buying and refunding it on Steam, criticising the dull level design and lack of movement options. I've seen a lot of positive talk from people I trust, though, and the later game looks genuinely enjoyable, so I picked it up in GOG's Halloween sale for around £7.50.

According to GOG I'm 1 hour and 50 minutes in and, so far, my criticisms are basically sustained but with the caveat that your most basic movement option that isn't explained, the ability to bounce on enemies using down-attack, is a lot of fun and allows you to reach certain areas and collectables that aren't otherwise available yet. THAT SAID this also lead to a situation where I had to suicide into a pool of deadly water(?) and bouncing to an area I wasn't yet supposed to access. Thankfully the proper way to access it was available and I was able to retrieve my Geo (aka. cash or souls). That's the only time I've died so far so I hope the game becomes more difficult!

The levels look okay but they have the same problem that many Metroidvania games have, that the levels feel like contrived arrangements of the same few elements rather than an actual place. It's something that a lot of games in this sub-genre are missing, and also the reason that Symphony of the Night is generally held in such high regard; the castle has an identity developed through the areas in it, that is the relation between the areas, the relation between the image of the overall castle and its areas, and the unique identifiers of each area. The upper section of the castle is notable because the outside areas are punctuated by the clock tower in the centre, and each section has a unique appearance. The right side of the castle has a staircase and elevator system operating from near the bottom to the top of the castle. The caverns contain an underground river which is used for transportation, although I won't attempt to make sense of the rest of it. There's a great staircase and a chapel on the upper-left side, taking advantage of the shape of the castle despite not really making sense. A lot of it is abstract or nonsensical, but it's differentiated and conforms to some sort of logic, and that's enough for Dracula's magical castle. It's something they screwed up in later games by making each area a tileset with little variation or contextual bearing. Hollow Night feels a lot like that, although the enemies and level design are a little better than you would typically expect from most Metroidvania games... it just feels a lot like I'm moving through some nice vector-graphics vines repeated in different arrangements rather than exploring an actual area.

The other game that I've been playing is Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse. I'm a huge fan of the SMT series; Persona 5 is my game of the year and SMT3 aka. Nocturne is my favourite JRPG of all time, although I confess that I haven't played Strange Journey yet.

This was a strange one. There's an incredible essay here (spoilers): http://eirikrjs.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/ ... dagda.html that sums of the criticisms of one central character from the game, and all of his essays are recommended if you have any interest in SMT. His Nocturne localisation essay told me a lot about my favourite game that I didn't even know!

Anyway, the summary of SMT4:A is that you get to deal with a POWER OF FRIENDSHIP narrative while Irish Shadow the Hedgehog tells you that friendship is lame, and attempts to convince you towards his personal philosophy which isn't really explained and which contradicts itself between his stated beliefs and actions.

That said, the gameplay is an improved version of SMT4. It's straight up a better game and, if we're honest, SMT4's story and characters were utter trash too, and some of the demon designs were hideous... actually, this is worth noting, they got guest artists to design a good number of SMT4 demons and as a result some of the most significant designs (Lucifer and Merkabeh most notably) were repulsive in entirely the wrong way.

Anyway! I enjoyed this a lot and I think it's my favourite 3DS game.

More Spelunky.

Still... cant... reach... Hell.... argh

I've come so freaking close.

So many hilarious fails.


And then Spelunky 2 is announced. I cant count the sheer number of times I've heard the original (well, the HD version even moreso) referred to as "the perfect video game". They've got one hell of a legacy to live up to. I wouldnt want to be in the dev's shoes right now. That development period is going to be a bloody nightmare for them.

Has it really been 9 freaking years since the Classic version was released? Ugh. I cant mentally process that length of time.

I think I'm about half way done with South Park: The Fractured but Whole. So far, I'm loving it.

Playing Wolfenstein 2. To this point it's a slightly worse game than New Order or Old Blood with some really, hysterically bad story scenes. The opening is a real howler, taking a type of characterisation that would normally require some length to convey (that is, John Wolfenstein's racist, violent, failing-businessman dad in a 1919 flashback sequence) and boiling it down to a very on-the-nose scene lasting perhaps a minute or two in length. Subsequently, the first three levels of the game take place on a ship, and the entire first level forces you into a wheelchair, which prevents any movement-based abilities and as such is little more than a shooting gallery. You manage to recruit the antagonist's daughter, who literally looks like Jim Sterling, and becomes so tired of murder and being fat-shamed that she betrays her mother and joins your crew. I'm about to start the fourth level but from what I've played so far, and from a certain scene (yes, THAT scene) that I've watched online, this is a bland shooter but funny enough that I'm compelled to play on. Whether or not the comedy is intentional is something that I'm going to have to reflect on later.

Some comments on the port. When I first opened the game earlier today, it was rendering at 720p and would reset the computer (!) whenever I changed resolution. Nvidia's new drivers fixed this, although unlike others suffering from the bug, I'm on a Pascal card and not Kepler. I still managed to crash the game, and hardlock the entire computer, while setting up, but this didn't reset the computer and was avoidable. Still, I'd be cautious about buying until any problems are fully resolved.

The performance is great though. It's in the same ballpark as DOOM was, and it's good to see another idtech 6 game that performs on that level, given that idtech 5 games (other than Rage, arguably) were typically riddled with issues. For reference I'm playing on a 1050 Ti and it's perfectly playable on high settings, and from what I've seen online a budget G4560 processor is sufficient for 60fps given the right GPU accompaniment (my Ryzen 1600 is more than enough)


Also! I've played more Hollow Knight and it does improve massively. The first hour or two was pretty torturous though, and I will never enjoy backtracking and being lost in this type of game.

More Spelunky THERE I'VE BEATEN HELL!! ! IT SHOULDNT HAVE HAPPENED!! !

That was one of the most difficult things I've done in any game in years. Holy heck. On the very first time I'd gotten there, too.

I think I'm near the end of Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, but I keep dinking around with the sidequest stuff.

...and one of them is starting to annoy me, so I've been taking some breaks with Pokemon Pinball (Ruby & Sapphire) ¬_¬

On the 3DS I've been playing a tiny bit of Ever Oasis, and I'm quite surprised at the DSi title "Pinball Pulse: The Ancients Beckon". IIRC, it's the same dev that made Metroid Pinball, and although I did enjoy that title quite a bit, this one plays like a real '90s pinball table (stealing bits and pieces from some of the greats), with some really nice physics. I just wish nudging the table wasn't so awkward in both games (you have to swipe the touch screen) >_<

I'm level grinding in an obscure JRPG called "Legend of Legaia" to get my characters to level 99. The requirement to get the last treasure of the game is that my characters are at max level. Right now, I'm at level 87.

More Pokemon Blue Rescue Team. Soon I'll have to face Groudon. I'm not worried about it. Rayquaza, on the other hand...
Going from Super Pokemon Mystery Dungeon to Blue Rescue Team is certainly a change. There's all these little quirks that are frustrating [you can't sell more than one item at a time, you can't look at the shop inventory if your bag is full, there's only two slots for items instead of six in Explorers of Sky, and I didn't realize how much I've come to depend on the Alliance system in Super until the first time my partner in Blue just stood there doing nothing while I was attacked...]

Eve online, again. Not sure I like the exoplanet search project discovery more than the atlas protien database classification one.

Wolfenstein 2: Stop putting me in situations where I have to wonder for a long time in order to figure out the progression route. If you're going to make a brainless FPS for idiots, at least understand this basic principle!

Every level I play makes me drop respect for this game even more, and it's a shame because I seriously appreciate how ridiculous the game is in terms of the story. There's a scene in the middle of the game that conveys exactly what they were going for, and that this isn't meant to be taken seriously at all.

e: regardless of anything else this isn't a very good game, it's a basic and poorly-implemented FPS/stealth game and it's bizarre that it's getting such positive reviews

Elder Scrolls Online right now I'm working on levelling up character.

Both Groudon and Rayquaza were easy to beat, thanks to Skitty's Sing, Charm, and Double-Slap.

Started a new family in The Sims 4, building skills and accumulating money in preparation for the Cats and Dogs expansion pack coming out on November 10.

Computer Tycoon. Early access, it's needs some work but it has potential.

Dont Starve.

Holy crap this game is sooooooooooo good.

I've had it for a long time but when I originally got it I couldnt keep playing it hardly at all; it was wrecking my arm (mouse, you see, I could not use it much at the time). I set it aside and forgot about it. But now I can get back to it. And it supports controllers now.... or maybe it has supported them all this time and I just missed it, which would be all sorts of stupid, but... whatever. It's a good time to be getting into it, with two large expansions out and another one on the way.

There's so much to learn with this one and so many things to do.

Fantasy Life, one of my favorite games