What are you playing right now?

Dropped Evil West. Got about 75% in and I couldn't take it anymore. So sick of cooldowns and tiny toolkits.

Got Fire Emblem Engage and Dead Space Remake with gift cards. Really like both so far. Weird to play new games that aren't ass.

>Haze and bad company
Damn, you just took me back to being a teenager.

>Haze

classic Halo killer. god i think you're the first person to play or even think about this game since 2008. i didn't notice this at the time but even the name is trying to replace Halo-- 4 letter word that starts with "Ha". i remember playing the demo for Haze at the time and it not doing anything for me.

this popped up while i was searching "Halo killer":

"Daniel Petric (/piːtrɪk/; born August 24, 1991) is a convicted murderer from Wellington, Ohio. At age 16, he shot both of his parents after his father confiscated his copy of the video game Halo 3."

i mean lemme put it this way; no one has ever killed their parents when they took away Haze or Killzone.

i just love the fate of the "Halo killers"; Haze killed its developer, Free Radical (remember TimeSplitters?). the Killzone games did relatively good but they were no Halo killer and now there's no more room for FPS's with Sony's The Last of Us-ification of their entire output ('prestige'/'Oscar-bait' narrative-driven single-player third-person shooters and open-world games ONLY) so that series is over. COD4 and MW2 came out around Halo 3 and that franchise became more popular than Halo, and then Halo had a sharp decline which kept going until it ultimately killed itself while COD is somehow more popular than ever. crazy at how that all went down.

>Realistically, I don't think I'll do both DS and DeS before ER's 1 year anniversary, but who knows?

relax, you don't gotta meet a deadline

Playing GoWII. Finished the game on VH and now I'm deep into a NUR+ (got to Atlas now). Fantastic game, and the No Upgrade isn't really that bad so far, makes me think about my tools more (Rage especially). Also ringouts are fun.
The bosses are pretty bad under these conditions, since most are just damage sponges, and I dislike that every single mook gets superarmor every time they breathe, meaning that you have to block and then counter, which is pretty annoying.

>GoWII
Fantastic game indeed. I actually cleared my NUR easier than VH for some reason.

>damage sponge bosses
The kraken fight is an abomination.

Has anyone tried HiFi Rush yet? I still have some days left of gamepass so I’ll see what it’s all about later.

Now that I finished Siren 2 I'm playing Deadly Premonition, but I think Hi-Fi Rush will be my next game, it looks really fun and its vibe reminds me of Jet Set Radio, and I've seen lots of praise for the game and combat.

GN1 wrote:Now that I finished Siren 2 I'm playing Deadly Premonition, but I think Hi-Fi Rush will be my next game, it looks really fun and its vibe reminds me of Jet Set Radio, and I've seen lots of praise for the game and combat.

I've been playing Hi-FI Rush extensively, and from my own experience, I can say with great confidence that the game is absolutely phenomenal. It's extremely rare when a video game is able to captivate me. A lot of times, a new game comes out that has my interest and it's usually just "this is neat; I'll enjoy it", and that usually ends up being the case. Like, not too long ago, I was playing Somerville because it was made by the devs (or at least one of them) who made Limbo and Inside, 2 puzzle games I thought were pretty damn good. Somerville wasn't a hugely hyped game but I got it thanks to Game Pass and enjoyed it but it wasn't really a "DAMN THIS WAS GREAT FOLLOW UP EXPERIENCE". This seems to be how I feel lately, even with Bayonetta 3, even though I actually prefer that over 2. Bayonetta 3 is alright overall but it still has a lot of the PG's stubbornness embedded into it.

But here comes Hi-Fi Rush and it just, for the lack of a better term, hits all the right notes. I've always desired for an action game that blends the gameplay with music in such a unique way and while there were games that have attempted that before (No Straight Roads, Brutal Legends, etc.), Hi-Fi Rush gets it extremely close to nailing exactly what I want, but, goddamn, the game soooo GOOD. As an action game, it probably won't ever be considered deep or what have you since you can't push for high APM gameplay, but that is honestly not the point of the game. Your entire playstyle is locked to the BPM of the game's soundtrack so you must time your attacks to each beat, but there's still so much flexibility in what you can do with the combat. I was shocked to find the game giving me combo finishers ala Bayonetta, parries ala DMC, magnet links ala DmC's devil bringer AND you even have a partner system where you can call in 3 of your friends in order to combine your combo action and allow you to freely experiment with creative air combos. So while, yes, you can't freely do super amazing tech stuff like DMC/Bayonetta, the game focuses more on making sure you FEEL good when you start playing to the rhythm of the game, right down to the last hit you throw at the enemies where you get a grand pinch harmonic finisher with a slow mo. The whole game just has a fantastic flow, where you shmove in and out of the enemy range to attack, link and block, all while still grooving to the killer soundtrack.

So yeah, I wholeheartedly recommend Hi-Fi Rush. It completely captivated me instantly and the only other game that was able to do that was Wonderful 101 like 9 years ago.

Great notes man, thanks for sharing! I'm really curious about HiFi myself but can't play it atm since I'm abroad. I'm hopeful it doesn't hamper Wanted:Dead's release in any way.

>cleared my NUR easier than VH for some reason
Yup, same. Probably because I didn't fully understand the power of Hammer + Rage yet.
Got to the Clotho hallway and decided to try it with PAIN+ rules instead, practicing the various waves with savestates. I already know the hardest ones will be the Gorgon one and the Satyr one. Gonna take me a few hours (if I don't say fuck it and do it normally instead).

Finished AC: Syndicate. Grappling hook killed parkour, not just in making it redundant. Whitelight made a video about the parkour downgrade from Unity to Syndicate.

Anyway, was going to 100% the objectives (against my better judgement), but a weird bug happened when I replayed an old mission. Think it was one of the Gang Strongholds where the bonus objective is to kill someone. I got into a deathloop where I was on solid ground, but respawning over and over, unable to open the pause menu, so I alt+f4'd out.

I come back today, and all of my viewpoints/fast travels are reset. Not great, not terrible. Then I do a side mission for Ned, one of the NPCs I'd been neglecting, and it tells me my previous XP with them is gone. Seems to be the same for every NPC, so I uninstalled. All missions are done, just not 100%. I could get a 100% save file, but this is my save file. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Not gonna replay the worst AC since 3. At least it gave me the Spartan rage needed to uninstall FC4, which is in the same boat. Using the Immersion Mod from start saved me playing map janitor to unlock basic abilities, but I was considering going back, till now. Can't wait till they give away Odyssey and Valhalla for free, cause they've done so for every other one.

Also finished a charming point and click adventure game called Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise. Only 3 or so puzzles required a guide, so it wasn't too convoluted by adventure game standards.

Gave Chained Echoes a go. Had my eye on it for a while and it's on Gamepass.

Quit and uninstalled. Here's why.

The Overdrive meter is shared with the whole party. I thought each character had their own.
This is stupid because I was thinking of set ups that where you purposely stay in certain areas of the meter.

I don't know if Sky Armor gears are locked for the whole party too, but that would be worse because they're like separate modes. Whatever their case is it doesn't matter because even if they were separate it wouldn't make up for the downsides.

Not having these kinds of freedoms is a deal breaker for me. I quit Monster Santuary and SMT (whatever the Switch one is with the blue haired guy) because you can't equip more than one of the same monster in battle.

There are big tough enemies on the map. Was hoping I could beat them at low power. Nope. Got destroyed in the usual JRPG fashion where you can't win unless you go away and power up. Any RPG does this now and I walk.

There's no leveling up, but as far as I can see upgrading skills and equipment sort of winds up being the same thing just not as fast as your more limited without the free power of levels.

Worse, there are crystals you can slot into equipment and these are a massive grind with all the farming and fusing.

playing GOTY 2022 Dark Souls 3.

Birdman, what games would you say have the best archery/crossbow combat? i'm just curious because i know you love your archery/crossbows.

Still chipping away the Loom Chamber. I can get to wave 5 semi consistenly and I figured out how to deal with W5, but I need more practice on it. I was thinking that the best course of action might be getting to W5, stop playing and then come back after a while with a fresh mind, since the encounters are both very long and very demanding.

>Birdman, what games would you say have the best archery/crossbow combat? i'm just curious because i know you love your archery/crossbows.

It's more about range for me than weapon type.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen has excellent bow combat. Longbow has insane range. Spent mist of the game sniping everything.

Horizon games are great too if you can get past the AAA bullshit. I played the first to 100% and replayed it later. Horizon 2 has way too much garbage.

Souls when it works. I played Demon's Souls entirely with a bow and loved it. Tried in Elden Ring but it didn't work with the limited arrow count and dodging enemies.

Beat the Loom Chamber with PAIN+ rules. A complete fucking nightmare while figuring it out but with the right strats (and lots of practice) it isn't that bad. The biggest problem is that it's very long (easily 20+ minutes), so if you die at the end (which happened 3 times) it can be very demoralizing. Otherwise, good challenge.

EDIT: Uploaded the run. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krlOuUQp804&ab_channel=Hyperfist

Got Grim Guardians. It's basically Curse of the Moon 3. It's got that semi-rigid movement and stuff from CotM and Classicvania(though you can slightly move in the air now), really powerful and varied subweapons that take up a shared resource between characters, some cool mobility stuff like a grapple hook and an umbrella that's a parachute that can also turn into a crazy charge attack, and of course, a lot of pitfalls.

I'm not upset that it's another CV-like, since they're some of my favorite games. I feel like so many sidescroller or indie games I've played in the last few years forego real mechanics and level design in favor of "look, nostalgia"(like vengeful guardian) or "muh iframe dash"(Katana Zero). You can be pretty damn creative here and use the tools in a lot of different ways.

Level design is rock solid. New enemies and hazards get introduced pretty quickly without ever being bullshit. Lot of tight platforming with a small number of enemies to make you be really careful. There are ways around environmental stuff too that's pretty clever. Boss fights are damn good like in curse of the moon as well, you can really obliterate them with good weapon usage and proper positioning.

Currently on my second playthrough, there's different routes that can be taken, bosses have new moves, and there's a bunch of new and more challenging areas.

The uh...source material...is the biggest thing I can complain about here. I'm not exactly a Gal Gun fan.

Watching tlou made me play the game. Playing tlou made me stop and go watch the show. At 720p, sub 30fps on ps3, the show probably has a higher framerate and resolution. I played up to ep 2 of the show a few years ago. Back then I thought it was survival horror, but it's happy to throw resources at you. I'm not even reloading encounters to reduce ammo spent on these bullet sponges.

It also comes from an age when games thought "realistic" guns were inaccurate and lumbersome controls were "weighty". Aiming is bad and It's not just me. No controller customization, and a single sensitivity slider for aiming. I reckon kb+m will trivialise gameplay on the PC port.

As for these cinematic games, what's left when you know the story? I know of the choice at the end, and I'm wondering how the more grounded show is going to handle it. Joel's also been pretty passive. He's always handed the best logical option. He has no reason not to bring Ellie to the fireflies, or work with Henry, because they're the fastest route to Tommy. For all its faults, I did like that tlou2 characters push back on the story by doggedly pursuing dumb decisions.

To be honest, there is some things to enjoy. There's some crafting, resource-management etc and a few things you can do in the combat (like using bricks is strangely strong). You can find some fun in it, especially in the more open-ended segments. But honestly it is just way too lineair.

If you want a cinematic game with solid combat I'd go for something like Uncharted 4 or Metal Gear Solid3. They really mix it super strong.

>what’s left after the story?
Not much. The game is decent enough with some interesting stuff, like how it mixes gunplay with(simple) melee and resource management, but a lot of the game is still quite basic and drawn out.

>MGS3
This is the obvious answer.

MGS3 on HBO when?

The GoW show's going to be hilarious. I can't imagine how much time/money it'll take to make the blades of chaos look convincing in motion.

>GoW show
From game, to movie-game, to movie. So happy to see the series come full circle.

> TLoU
I was surprised to find I enjoyed it (I played the PS4 remaster). As mentioned, it's a pretty simple game, but I found some of the combat scenarios against the infected to be quite fun. The game was at its best when you had more open arenas and infected enemies charging at you, whereas the cover based combat against non-infected gun users was pretty dull. I have TLoU2 and need to give it a try at some point.

> What are you playing right now?
Finished Hi-Fi Rush recently, pretty good game and a very nice surprise launch. Very aesthetically pleasing, a proper action title in the ways we like. I didn't think the combat had a lot of depth, but I also felt it didn't really click with me until about 90% of the way through, so maybe my opinion would change with another run through. Played it via Game Pass so I will definitely pick it up on Steam when there is a sale on, a game worth supporting IMO.

Seeing as I still have a few weeks of Game Pass, I should probably try and fit in a few more games. I don't think there's anything I'm desperate to try but Atomic Heart, Deathloop, Shadow Warrior 3 or Guardians of the Galaxy could get a playthrough.

> What are you playing right now?
Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin

I was very turned off by the farming simulation aspect of the game but someone with the same mentality recommended it on the character action subreddit, saying how the combat system was really good and the farming was very enjoyable. And I'm having a blast! The combat system is very cool: You can do fast or strong attacks, you can parry, you have a dash with invulnerability frames (though it's a bit short and only really useful for last-minute evading) and a scarf to grab enemies and some parts of the scenery from a distance and dart to them (think Nero's arm in DMC).
You can equip up to 5 special skills which require magic to be used, which you get back by attacking enemies. They're incredibly useful and varied and complement really well the scarf skills. These skills are things like a tornado to launch enemies, an energy wall that reflects projectiles (and also launches enemies), a dashing almost-teleporting-slash, a barrage of slashes, a strong hit that sends enemies flying into each other...
You can also equip 4 scarf skills at a time that allow you to throw enemies behind you, bring them to you, crash into them sending them flying, debuff their attack/defense...These also cost magic to use.

Launching enemies into each other deals a ton of damage, so the scarf skills are much more useful than they may seem at first. Also, enemies have a hidden poise stat that prevents them from being grabbed (you can dart to them but you can't apply any scarf skills to them), so you first need to destroy their poise through normal and special attacks and then use the scarf skills before they can recover. This creates a very nice loop in which you're constantly combining normal attacks with special and scarf skills. Enemies are very well designed, so a lot of times your skills will be perfect for one type of enemy but almost useless for another. This way you can't always rely on the same 2 moves and the combat gets another layer where you have to select the best skill to use on the current enemy layout.

The farming system is very enjoyable and sometimes I've surprised myself prioritizing it over the action parts of the game. Ie, growing rice is the way to level up. As the game advances more and you start to develop your own fighting style and you will also start paying more attention to how your rice develops. By changing your farming tactics you can affect which of your stats get powered up, so you can prioritize more raw strength and HP o a bigger magic pool to be able to use more skills, or more magical power to make them deal more damage...The drip-feeding of mechanics and skills is very well done and you're always getting new weapons, skills, equipment, farming tools and techniques...

If you're on the fence on this one, give it a try :)

My go-to comfort game for the last 6 months was Rumbleverse, but the game ended its service this week and it has left me sad and empty. Rumbleverse just had that spark that was able to scratch my itch, and I wasn't prepared to see it disappear so soon.

If there is ANY chance in my future I can take up game development classes, I will seize the opportunity and figure out how to make my own action game that features wrastlin' moves, because there seriously isn't a game that features the wild dopamine of slamming enemies high from the sky quite like Rumbleverse. Count on it.

For now, I have Pizza Tower, which is super fun. I quite enjoy the chaotic, visual noise and anxiety it offers while speeding through platforms at exhilarating speeds. I'm not in any position to return to Bayonetta anytime soon because I still can't escape the memories of all the shit I endured back in October. Yes, yes, I know, I shouldn't let fans and other outsiders affect me, but I just can't escape it and I don't know how to throw it off. I'd feel a lot better if I abandon most of the action games stuff because I'm not cut out to be the voice of reason in a lot of things now that the new fanbase has taken over and thrown me aside. I think I'll just go back to being a stupid SEGA fanboy and playing Crazy Taxi.

Started REmake. Surprisingly loving it. Rewards experimentation. And by that, I mean restarting the game from scratch because you fucked yourself from the opening. You want to open the main door and let in an infected dog? Sure. Tight inventory teaches you to stop picking up everything not bolted down (the anti-Skyrim). Also improving on baiting zombies into grabs to get round them.

I have some outsider knowledge, like burning bodies, the Jill sandwich not triggering if you get the acid rounds early, and "mountain difficulty" being normal. But which zombies to to try shotgun decapitating, and which ones to leave alone, that's on me. The only thing I'd say is unfair is a zombie getting into the map room with the dagger, despite me blocking the exit with a desk.

Been shredding the film backlog while I'm at it too. Cutting out the junkfood video essay & replacing it with the sirloin steak that feeds it.

2001: A Space Odyssey. Pure kino. Kubrick goes against the conventions of film and delivers a CGI-less masterclass. Really challenged the sensibilities of modern film viewers, and I found some of it jarring, but that’s kind of the point. Will need a rewatch.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Woman takes picture of another woman without her consent. Excellently shot, minimalist filmy-ass film. There are so many shots that subvert expectations, and not in a “you thought this was going to be good, but actually it’s shit” kind of way. Liked the mystery of the 1st half, thought it dragged a little in the 2nd. Overall, highly recommended.

Emily the Criminal. Expected “the Big Short” for dummy shopping, instead got romance, coming of age, Batman and gig worker social commentary. Closer to IMDB’s 6.7 than Metacritic’s 75. Also, hilarious seeing Hollywood take jabs at unpaid internships, when they’re just as guilty. Plus they skirted over that nepotism plot point real quick. Plaza kills it, but her “rich actress plays working class pleb” routine isn’t quite on par with McDormand’s (Nomadland/3 Billboards).

@Setnaro X feel it's such a shame about Rumbleverse, as the idea looked really solid and it's another case of modern game-design literally deleting games away. I remember reading an interview with John Carmack (coder of Doom, Quake etc.) that he felt it was such a shame that longgevity was no longer a priority for many developers (and gamers).

He noted:

Carmack wrote: Every game should make sure they still work at some level without central server support. Even when not looking at end of life concerns, being able to work when the internet is down is valuable. If you can support some level of LAN play for a multiplayer game, the door is at least open for people to write proxies in the future. Supporting user-run servers as an option can actually save on hosting costs, and also opens up various community creative avenues.

Be disciplined about your build processes and what you put in your source tree, so there is at least the possibility of making the project open source. Think twice before adding dependencies that you can’t redistribute, and consider testing with stubbed out versions of the things you do use. Don’t do things in your code that wouldn’t be acceptable for the whole world to see. Most of game development is a panicky rush to make things stop falling apart long enough to ship, so it can be hard to dedicated time to fundamental software engineering, but there is a satisfaction to it, and it can pay off with less problematic late stage development.

And I feel that's pretty on the mark. Just add a Lan mode, or even just "splitscreen" or playing with bots (whatever happened to that?). That way you'll at least leave the door open in the future.

Played RE4 (OG) properly, finishing once on Normal (while trying to remain at a high difficulty level, so not getting hit, not dying etc.) and once on Pro. There's no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest action game I've ever played. Rock solid fundamentals, stressed over so many scenarios and with (mostly) superb pacing. A lot of great action games all have some kind of big flaw (like DMC3's enemy design), but here it's only a couple of nitpicks.
I'll admit that the middle portion of the island starts to lag a bit, mainly because they throw too many setpieces/bosses at you without normal encounters to balance them out, but it's not that big of a deal anyway.
Will replay it a couple more times with different loadouts before maybe starting to attempt some challenge runs.
I'd also like to grab the REmake but I will wait for a chunky sale.

Highly recommend trying out some more of the niche weapons like Punisher. The TMP and BAR are fantastic too and tend to be overlooked/underused. It's pretty easy to fall into the trap of Red9/Striker/SAR/BB. But there's a whole lot of fun to be had with the rest too. Also the minethrower. Such a joy.

Underappreciated fun is doing a Handcannon Only run. Requires NG+ though, but very challenging actually since ammo is so rare.

> weakpoints
I'd say enemy-mixing is lacking, it's true one weakness. You never really fight Novistradors with Ganados for example (something the remake does do in one single fight, just before the end) and a few bosses are weak. But these are honestly but blemishes. There's so many little details and I also like that you can skip a lot of the setpieces, like just chasing down the red-monk instead of letting him reach the chaingun.

My biggest (personal gripe) is that the game is too long though. I had hoped that RE4R would fix this ironically, but it's still a 12+ hour experience if you don't rush; which is a tad too long for me.

> REmake
of the original? Or of 4?

Used the MT on my first playthrough along with the TMP. Used the BAR on my Pro run. I already have a couple of loadouts I want to try. I've also seen that you can headshot a Ganado type enemy with the MT, kick them and the explosion will go off while you still have your iframes, fucking awesome.

>enemy-mixing is lacking
Yeah I've noticed it but tbh I don't think it's that big of a deal here since the enemy types work so well by themselves. Plus you also have Ganado types with different weapons + Plagas which keep things fresh (not to forget also Salvador and JJ). While it would have been cool to see a Soldier encounter with some Regenerators thrown in as well as Ganados with Colmillos, I didn't crave for these encounters either.

>a few bosses are weak
Bosses aren't super great but they offer a fun change of pace and still use a lot of the game's core mechanics. It's also fun to blow them up with a single RL.

>you can skip a lot of the setpieces
On my second run I tried to shoot the dragon statues in the Lava room before the Zealots appeared and was suprpised to see it working. Nowadays they would have fun-proofed it.

>the game is too long
I thought this too the first time I played it a couple of years back but now I think it only barely stays its welcome. I would have cut U3 honestly and shortened up the middle island section a bit.

>Or of 4?
Of 4, should have worded it better, but I do plan on playing some of the OGs for sure. It will also be fun experiencing fixed cameras + tank controls for the first time.

>There's no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest action game I've ever played
*removes from kill list*

>chunky sale
My favorite kind.

> remixing
Good note on "i didn't crave those encounters". I am pro enemy-mixing, but sometimes it's good to leave well enough alone.

> MT
Such a fun weapon.

> setpieces
In general the Rocket Launcher being a 30.000 ptas skip-button always interessed me. Outside of Del Lago you can skip every boss fight in the game using this singular 'cheap' item. In the remake they changed its price to 160.000 ptas which I honestly think is a mistake regarding the 'open' difficulty the original strived for.

> would have cut U3 and streamlined island a bit
Personally I'd add sidequests to the game. What the game truly lacks is sometimes side objectives like killing 3 rats or collecting 5 blue medallions constantly for a secondary resource maybe that you can nearly exclusively get through them, to pad out the game even more.. Then perhaps remove U3 as you said, remove the cage-garador fight and remove the last three arenas of the castle and just fuse it together. I'd also add a ranking system that ranks you on saves. Maybe remove JJ as well, just to screw with people ;D

> fun proofed lava room
My previous jest aside to the remake, I'm surprised to say that they didn't remove these kinds of things. Especially when you get the sniper with the 3x scope, you can kill a lot of ambushes before they happen. There's still the "haha we spawn from behind" moment but the original has that too.

> bosses
My favourite is still El Gigante #2, the one with the rock. Mechanically that one is just so interesting. A giant boss in such a tight hallway, you can use a rock to damage him, or to slow him down while you run away. There's so much ways you can handle that fight, very cool.

>My favorite kind
Was hoping for a 100% sale (if you know what I mean) but Denuvo is a bitch, so I'll wait. I refuse to pay more than 20€ for a videogame. Still following Guybrush' advice all these years later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlfyxWaeGCE&ab_channel=blayzerev

>they changed its price to 160.000 ptas
The genious of the original price was that if you really, really hated a boss you could just skip it. It made the game a bit too easy but it was still great.

>remake removing stuff
Did they really cut the caged Garrador fight? Fuck me. JJ as well?

>they didn't remove these kinds of things
Wonder if someone from the OG team developed the new game as well.

>the original has that too
Only in the water room iirc. One of the few moments where the game feels cheap.

>El Gigante #2
In general every boss has some fun quirk to exploit to make things interesting. Gigante 1 has the dog and the little houses, Del Lago is obvious, Mendez and Salazar have two floors with different elevations (and Mendez also has exposive barrels), double El Gigantes have the trap in the middle of the arena, Verdugo has the nitrogen canisters, U3 has the chase sequence and an arena with barrels and gates, Krauser has the knife weakness and Saddler has enviromental stuff to knock him down. While none of them is a mechanical masterpiece they are all fun.
I also like how with El Gigante 2 you can open the first door before he even appears.

> 160.000 ptsas
It feels like a weird change, especially since there's now DLC that adds more treasures afaik.

> caged garrador
It's now a cutscene fight strangely enough. The idea is that Leon is trapped and Ashley has to save him, instead of Ashley being trapped. It's a solid twist but just wish it didn't sacrifice such a cool segment for it.

> JJ
There's a new 'boar' type enemy, regular beefed up ganado with a boar head with massive hyper armor. He comes in three types, hammer, fists and rapid-fire crossbow (yeah).

> backspawning
There's a few other instances too where offscreen enemies will spawn where you came from, like the Catapult section in the original. You can easily find this out by leaving Ashley there, she'll be kidnapped pretty fast haha. But RE4make has it way more, as well as iirc teleporting enemies. If you don't turn the camera behind you every once in a while enemies will teleport behind you while chasing you to keep it 'tense' which is cheaty as fuck haha (don't quote me on this though, heard a speedrunner say it).

> bosses
Definitely agree they are all unique in minor ways. And even then, with the tools at hand, damage-optimization is really fun to tinker with too.

>RE4 greatest action game
Correct.

>enemy mixing
Eh, yeah there’s potential here but the Ganados/cultists are so much more interesting than most enemies in action games that I don’t mind. All of their different attacks and animations, the huge variety of weapons, shields and helmets, plagas, reaction to environmental stuff, etc. I don’t think the novistadors are particularly great enemies anyway.

TEW also didn’t really mix enemies aside from throwing in a doppelgänger into certain bigger fights. Alteregos were just relegated to their own chapters. Vanquish also doesn’t mix things together much aside from Romanovs. I wonder why Mikami’s games don’t do this much.

>bosses are weak
I’ll take these bosses that you can nuke with ammo you have saved up and each having a little gimmick rather than the “bait and punish” wars of attrition we see in most action games.

>island
Island is great and I won’t accept other opinions. Also, castle is best area in OG(although I like the village most in the remake).

>enemy mixing
It's also a problem with NG1 and 2. I think they do it to remain thematically consistent, but who cares about that.

>island
Only the middle section really. The bulldozer segment is meh, and U3 and Krauser back to back is a bit tiresome, since both bosses have a "chase" sequence followed by a normal boss battle. Not the biggest fan of the Regenerators either since they are knife fodder (on non GC versions of the game anyway) and only come one at the time. Even without the knife you can't do a whole lot to them aside from hitting their weakspots or just dumping tons of ammos and nades into them.

I'm going to play DMC5 for the first time after I get through the others again(including DMC2 since I only played it once when I got the HD collection for 360 in 2012).

About RE4, can anyone tell me the issues from Separate Ways? I'm not sure if what I played was that other mode where you also play as Ada (been a really long time), but this was during a moment when I didn't know better, so I don't remember hating it or anything.

You had two modes, Assignment Ada and Seperate Ways. The latter was added in the PS2 and higher versions. AA is basically a little arcade mode where you play as Ada, nothing special but a fun little side-venture. SW is a full on campaign. It mostly feels cobbled together using existing assets and doesn't offer a lot of cool new things. Lots of reused bosses, areas, fights. It was RE4-lite, made by the B-team. It's not bad, but it's not amazing either to my knowledge.

I'm close to the end of Fatal Frame 3 today, going to finish it today, will probably write about it in the Fatal Frame topic after I'll finish it and start mission mode.

I also got Final Fantasy Chaos now that it's on Steam. I only played the combat tutorials and like 5-10 minutes of actual combat but that was enough to get me hooked. Gonna start playing it after I'll finish Fatal Frame 3.

I love how the game rewards player aggression with regular attacks and soul burst/shield usage refilling the special attack gauge. Essentially you'd want to use your special attacks as much as possible, but in order to do so you have to play aggressively to keep refilling the gauge.

> FFChaos
Love how that's slang for that game. I want to buy it too but don't have time for it currently (or cash haha). Keep hearing great things tho for sure.

I am playing OG resident evil 4 for comparing with RE4 remake side by side, And I realized that I could remember all of rooms when I get into, their settings are all intersting enough(Also how you can skip the part by purchasing a glorious rocket launcher). In addition, I do it on professional and I wanna go with no death. I usually don`t do no death run, but OG resident evil 4 is a serial of short sections & manual save so it`s nice to try with it even I don`t use 'continue'.

I'm playing Shadow of the Colossus on Hard Mode. What a masterpiece of a game.

>Assignment Ada
Was this the one where you started at the island?

>lots of asset reuse
>made by B Team
If a different team handled it, then yeah, I can see how it could be seen as a 'RE4-lite'. Doubt the existing assets are put to good use, either.

> Assingment Ada
Yeah that's the one, just a neat little arcade game.

> seperate ways
Yeah there's barely any new content. There's one new boss (Saddler in his human form) and that's about it iirc.

> stylemeter game
What title is that?

My friends want to play a co-op game, but we have very different tastes so after many discussion we picked up Monster Hunter : Rise(on PC) . This one is my first MH, and I played like 4 hours? So I can not say what is good or bad but honestly I would only play with friends. It just dosen`t tickle my Ni-oh 2 itches.

Ah, I liked the long sword most. I do not know monster patterns or timing yet, so I didn`t use many counter attacks but even that was fun to experiment thigns.

Started MonHun Generations Ultimate because I hate myself. So far I'm liking it way more than MH4U, just because you have multiple ways of dealing with the bullshit they throw at you (Absolute Evasion and Adept Style especially). Difficulty is also slighly higher in Low Rank and the couple of new monsters that I've fought are better than the ones introduced in 4U, with clearer moves, movement and more recovery animations. Will probably update the dedicated topic if I have something more to say.

I've decided to re-play Max Panye, partially as a bit of break from GOWs, but also because I liked Alan Wake for its story, which is rare thing. Never been that thrilled over Max Payne games, but decided to give them another shot. I will also probably play the 3rd one and I'm crurious how they stack up agianst each other.

Keep me posted, I really tried to get into the Payne games but only part-3 clicked with me (sorry boys)

^ My thoughts after getting far into it (Part III):

MP is pretty simple mechanically. At Its core, it's about movement and bullet-time management than precise shooting. Likewise, time-slow is more about facilitating bullet dodging and less about lining up shots. Most of weapons are not particularly accurate due thier spread - there are only few which shooting pattern corresponds, more or less, with crosshair.

Game can be unforgiving even on fugitive (standard) and there are several higher mode to unlock. MP punishes careless use of iconic shootdodge as it's generally unsafe and has huge recovery. Regular sideways dodge is more reliable evasive tool.

Story can be hit or miss. MP's storytelling that both pokes fun of and pays homage to noir crime fiction as genre is part of its appeal. Plot is not particularly original, it's conglomerate of cliches and tropes of the genre elevated only by witty writing and Max's quotes. Story is told through cutscenes (skippable).

I like it, but it has some technical issues and one annoying platforimg section.