Everything Video Games!

Started Titanfall 2. Always enjoy a dumb shooter, and this is going good so far. Not so great at the wall running stuff, but I'm getting better at it. Will happily play the Campaign then quit.

Definitely need an external hard drive for my PS4 though, running out of space!
 
Fillip J Phry said:
Wasn't expecting to write this today, but here's my hopefully brief review of Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. Spoilers ahead, so be warned!

TL;DR: This game is a mostly great love letter to the DKC series, with some Banjo-Kazooie flair weaved in as well.

First off, lets talk mechanics. This is a 2D platformer at the core. You have Yooka and Laylee to start, and they work best as a team. Moves are simple, jump, roll, stationary tail attack, and tongue grab to pick up and throw items. The DKC mechanics are here, including the roll jumps past ledges you often see used in speed running. When the duo are together, you can also do a better roll, a twirl move that extends jumps, and a ground pound attack that can open secret areas. Taking damage will cause Laylee to detach and fly around wildly. You have a short window to recover her before she flies off. You can call her back with bells placed throughout the level. This mechanic is neat, but I often found instances where Laylee would go somewhere where it was impossible to grab her.

Within the levels, you collect coins and quills, and the end goal of saving a bee. Coins are used for hub world progression, and quills are used to purchase tonics (more on these later). There are 5 coins on each level, and aren't all required, but do unlock a nice upgrade if you get them all. There are special quills within the level, colored red, blue, green. purple, and yellow. Reds are a jump challenge, where you have to jump on each one to unlock a quill bonus. Blue are a targeted quill challenge, where quills will appear in a small area, and you have a short time to collect them all. Green are a speed challenge, where the quill will fly off and leave a trail of normal quills to follow, reaching the quill will award a bonus. Purple spew out a bunch of quills that disappear quickly, usually in a difficult or dangerous area, before exploding into more quills. Finally, yellow quills drop normal quils as it navigates around an area before leaving the level. Collect the quills before it leaves for the bonus. These are pretty fun to complete, and some of them drop coins as their reward instead of quills.

As far as levels go, there are 20 "chapters" and a hub world. I say chapters because each book that you find in the hub world has an alternate version. Unlocking the alternate version is usually a small puzzle on the hub world. Some are as simple as flipping a switch, others more involved. Changes to the level are varied and probably my favorite part of this game. Stuff like the level is on fire, has more enemies, iced over, flooded, mechanical features on/off, etc. all show up here, and add a lot of variety. The hub world itself should be considered a level, as there is a lot to explore here and you can find 10 bees throughout. Some come from finding a secret exit in certain levels, others come from exploration. There are also several gates in the game blocked by our shifty snake friend Trowzer. You have to pay coins to unlock these.

The hub world is also where you find and unlock Tonics. Tonics are modifiers you can add when you play a level. You can have up to 3 per level, and the all coins bonus I mentioned earlier is a 4th slot. There are 62 to collect, and they have a wide range of uses. Some make the game easier/harder, which adds a multiplier to the quils you earned in each level. Others are purely aesthetic, and add various filters to the game, like sepia, black and white, retro graphics, and many more. Once unlocked, you have to purchase the Tonic with quills if you want to be able to use it. I liked this part, as it gives use to the quills you collect in each level. With all the quills I got getting the rest of the collectibles, unlocking all tonics only required me to grind the first level a couple times to get the small amount I was missing.

I talked about the Impossible Lair in some earlier posts, so I won't go into it too much here. What I don't think I mentioned was that you start the game here, with no bees to protect you. Obviously you're not supposed to succeed, but it is possible, and unlocks the final Tonic. I did not go for this, the Lair was tricky enough as is. You can also challenge the Lair any time you want, but it's much easier if you save all the bees first.

I did have a few complaints about the game. While it controls well overall, I had some odd issues, particularly in the later stages. I had a few bugs where I would hold jump and Yooka would do the shortest hop possible, leading to some unintentional damage and deaths. Hit boxes can sometimes be a bit wonky as well. Finally, the one that really got my blood boiling a couple times was the climbing mechanic. Basically, you can climb around on certain netting and vines, and a couple levels use this extensively. My issue here is the physics when jumping. If you try to jump sideways, I had a lot of issues with short vs. long hops. They seemed to trigger really inconsistently, causing me to either fall short, or way overshoot my target.

Finally, I want to mention the music. David Wise and Grant Kirkhope, two of my favorite composers, as well as Matt Griffin and David Murdoch lend their talents to this game. The soundtrack is fantastic, and has a surprising amount of tracks. If I remember correctly, every level and variant level have their own songs, and the hub world has several. Really great listen that compliments the whole game.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game, and am looking forward to whatever they decide to do for a sequel. A few minor complaints here and there, but otherwise smooth, fun gameplay overall, all the charm you've come to love from the people who developed it, and plenty of challenge.
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Impossible Lair is 55% off at $13.50 on the eShop... worth getting?
 
Anyone played Darksiders Genesis? It's on Game Pass right now, so I started it this weekend. This one's really scratching my dungeon crawler itch. My only real complaint after 4 levels is that the dash move gets hung up on EVERYTHING. To get 100% you have to replay levels, and getting through stuff quicker with the dash is helpful except when it kills your movement. Other than that, I like the Strife/War gameplay, switching and utilizing each is fun. Right now Strife seems to be a bit more useful, I'm hoping that balances over time. It might just be becuase I suck at blocking with War too :unsure:

Just a quick note on Dark Souls, those enemies that shoot the giant battering ram like spears at you can eff right off. Even my best shield can't withstand them, and they're way more accurate than normal archers.
 
Fillip J Phry said:
Just a quick note on Dark Souls, those enemies that shoot the giant battering ram like spears at you can eff right off. Even my best shield can't withstand them, and they're way more accurate than normal archers.
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I rebuilt my computer recently, new mobo with PCIe 4.0, 32G of 3600mhz memory, Ryzen 9 3950x CPU, 1TB 4th Gen NVMe, all to get ready for Cyberpunk 2077. The only thing I didn't upgrade was my 1070ti, because I knew Nvidia would announce their new stuff.

Now I need to decide if I want to fight for a Founders Edition, or wait for the Super/ti editions... I mean a first gen 3080 is better than a 2080ti, but if they come out with a Super a week after I buy one will I get buyers remorse? Will FOMO give me consumer paralysis yet again? Ugh, technology.
 
Alexander said:
I have a 2080ti.. imagine how I feel.
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Yeah, I was honestly surprised by the leap they're making for the very fair price... I guess they have to compete with next gen consoles, but man, 2080ti's are still +$1500, which is around how much the 3090 will be... It's a bit of a slight to anyone who bought into the 20 series.
 
Max Sterling said:
I rebuilt my computer recently, new mobo with PCIe 4.0, 32G of 3600mhz memory, Ryzen 9 3950x CPU, 1TB 4th Gen NVMe, all to get ready for Cyberpunk 2077. The only thing I didn't upgrade was my 1070ti, because I knew Nvidia would announce their new stuff.

Now I need to decide if I want to fight for a Founders Edition, or wait for the Super/ti editions... I mean a first gen 3080 is better than a 2080ti, but if they come out with a Super a week after I buy one will I get buyers remorse? Will FOMO give me consumer paralysis yet again? Ugh, technology.
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The Supers felt like they only released because AMD was knocking on their door performance wise for less money. Unclear if that will be the case this time around.
 
Big time plays last night on Dark Souls. I think I forgot to post yesterday, but I got past the Silver Knights that try to shoot you off the platform. I figured out how to convince them that the ground waaaaay below where we were fighting was a better place to continue to conversation. Sadly, I had another appointment, so I couldn't join them down there. Instead, I made my way through the palace/castle/whatever and got to the boss area. A message popped up about a black eye, but I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing as I was fighting the giant knights and trying to get the door open. I managed to succeed, and onto the boss I went. I was well aware of Ornstein and Smough before this, so I was a bit intimidated. After several failed attempts I started to learn their patterns and how to corral their attacks using the pillars and Smoughs giant ass. I got Ornstein down a couple times, but was struggling with the lighning slam from Smough in the second phase. I didn't know how the health worked, so I decided to change strategy and whittle them both down at the same time. Basically I focused on keeping Smough between Ornstein and I. I'd fight directly with Smough, and hit Ornstein when he dashed around. I managed to get them both down to one hit each. I had them both close together, and I finished Ornstein. As I was swinging the killing blow on Smough, the cut scene triggered. No big deal right? just charge in and get that final hit, I had close to full health. NOPE, time for a FULL HEAL. At that point I was out of heals myself, and almost got him down, but a bad dodge on lightning finished me off. I went back to my original strategy of killing Ornstein first and not worrying about Smough until the second phase. I found my stride when I focused on a single pillar instead of running around. I'd let him do his attack, usually jump slam or swing, then charge in and get a two handed hit and immediately move back to the other side of the pillar. This worked really well, and I only got the lightning slam a couple times. I finished them off after about 12 tries and met Gwynevere. I then looked up the message I missed and found I was able to invade the bastard that killed the firekeeper. Took a couple tries, but he went down too, and I warped back to firelink shrine to revive the firekeeper. I had a feeling you could get her to talk eventually, I like to see that I was right. I took the Lordvessel to the shrine, and saw the cut scene of a bunch of doors I didn't recognize. Looks like it's time to do some exploring!
 
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Really enjoying the game so far. Both campaigns were a blast to get through with my create-a-skater (maxed skills) so now I can go through with pros and get their unlockables. Tons of content here if you enjoy the gameplay loop.

Online is a bit lacking but fun. Easy to get in and out of matches but wish Horse wasn’t tied to just local split screen (happy this is included!). Overall, if you dug them back in the day or just want a fun, arcadey sports game, this is tough to beat.
 
When I played THPS 1+2 back in the day I used to always use codes to turn on perfect manual, grinding, and automatic special. So to say that getting use to balancing is difficult would be an understatement. Also mashing buttons doesn’t work either, actually trying to think of which tricks to do and where makes it a good challenge.
 
just got the kingdoms of amalur re-reckoning and man I missed this game. One of my favorites back then. Enjoying it a lot right now
 
wokeupnew said:
When I played THPS 1+2 back in the day I used to always use codes to turn on perfect manual, grinding, and automatic special. So to say that getting use to balancing is difficult would be an understatement. Also mashing buttons doesn’t work either, actually trying to think of which tricks to do and where makes it a good challenge.
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Try to do any of the hard Get Theres yet? Oowee, some of those are tricky.
 
Final Fantasy III (Actual III not American III) is getting a vinyl release. You can "Reserve" a copy in Japan, but it'll be for sale November 18th on the Square site as well. Looks like A side is orchestral arrangements with B side being the Original tracks.

FINAL FANTASY III -Four Souls- | SQUARE ENIX

Vinyl record commemorating Final Fantasy III’s 30th anniversary in 2020 will be available with selected original and newly arranged tracks!
www.jp.square-enix.com

I was mistaken, you can preorder it now on the Square site, $40... yeesh.
 
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