2021 VIDEO GAME CATCH ALL THREAD

[J.T.]

On 12/21/2021 at 11:24 PM, Gonzo said:

I'm playing the Guardians of the Galaxy game on PS5 now, and while I don't have a Series X to compare it to, it does look freaking awesome on the 70" 4K TV.

It is absolutely GORGEOUS on a S/X and a 4K Ultra television.  

Yeah, Star Lord is made of eggshells so be sure to capitalize on everyone's strengths.  Groot is your crowd control guy, Rocket is your AoE specialist, Gamora is heavy DD, and Drax is exceptional at staggering enemies.  

Also remember to invest in Tactical Scan and use it to find enemy weaknesses before you start picking out which Guardian should attack what enemy. 

There are parts of the game that are still pretty bugged though.  The Galactic Compendium loves to lock up items you have already found if you try to start a new game before finishing a playthrough and any items you unlock in Chapters mode do not count towards your collection.  The fucking auto-save also enjoys writing over your hard saves.   Square really needs to fix this shit.

Edited December 23, 2021 by J.T.

[Matt D]

I've got another day or two of Xenoblade Chronicles I can play on the margins before the kids get new games and that'll be that for a bit (I snagged Ori 2 in the Steam Sale now that it finally hit $10 so that'll be on the laptop).

BUT, I figured out expert mode and it's pretty great. I was 10+ levels over what I should be which meant no challenge and no SP, and though it was a mental struggle to actually do it, I knocked it back to being in line with my enemies and I'm getting SP every fight and have to think about things a bit. When I want to take on tougher enemies, I can push it right back up. Before I was both rewarded and punished for exploring; now it's all reward. Just a brilliant system for letting you play how you like.

[AaronMLuke]

Accomplished  my big goal for gaming today. Hit 100,000 gamerscore which I was hoping  to do before my 50th birthday. Got it done 10 months early. So grateful for the last 2 years since getting back with my wife.  All things are possible even if you're  a complete screw up like I have been.

[J.T.]

59 minutes ago, AaronMLuke said:

Accomplished  my big goal for gaming today. Hit 100,000 gamerscore which I was hoping  to do before my 50th birthday. Got it done 10 months early. So grateful for the last 2 years since getting back with my wife.  All things are possible even if you're  a complete screw up like I have been.

Grats, dude!  I kept getting the feeling you didn't want any of us to catch up with you on the XBox gamerscore leaderboard.  Every time I'd get fifteen points, you'd get like two hundred.

Edited December 24, 2021 by J.T.

[J.T.]

Octopath Traveler and its damned storyline continues to bring the feels.   It is a great game.  I hate it so much.

[AaronMLuke]

1 hour ago, J.T. said:

Grats, dude!  I kept getting the feeling you didn't want any of us to catch up with you on the XBox gamerscore leaderboard.  Every time I'd get fifteen points, you'd get like two hundred.

Well, I am competitive by nature, but this was racing to the finish line of my goal.

[JLSigman]

2 hours ago, J.T. said:

Octopath Traveler and its damned storyline continues to bring the feels.   It is a great game.  I hate it so much.

Squeenix is the absolute lord and master of the "I did not ask for these feels damnit". See also: FF 14's last two expansions.

[John E. Dynamite]

25 minutes ago, JLSigman said:

Squeenix is the absolute lord and master of the "I did not ask for these feels damnit". See also: FF 14's last two expansions.

Didn't always used to be that way. I'm knocking on the final boss of Xenogears' door. No feelings. Just cosmic befuddlement.

[A.M.B.]

Still really want to play Octopath Traveller but I never see it on sale, PS Store always having sales has spoiled me to where even 40 bucks feels steep whenever I check out what the Nintendo eShop has to offer. When I see it around 30 one day I’ll probably snatch it, but I’m also so overwhelmed with my backlog I’m never in a rush to buy. Reminds me that I still need to beat FF6 one day. I love that game but have stopped around 2/3rds thru both times I’ve tried playing in the last 15 years, as it’s just soooo big. I always prefer playing it the legitimate way, but I’ve heard there’s some cool mods if you emulate it, things like making Gau’s moves a lot easier to learn and other tweaks to balance out the game, so maybe I’ll give that a go soon. Catching Covid has opened up tons of gaming time for me this holiday season.

Edited December 25, 2021 by A.M.B.

[Raziel]

17 hours ago, John E. Dynamite said:

Didn't always used to be that way. I'm knocking on the final boss of Xenogears' door. No feelings. Just cosmic befuddlement.

Xenogears is a special case. I would've loved to see that game actually finished with a better translation.

[Andrew POE!]

Got my 239th Platinum trophy with Christmas Run for PS5. Extremely easy Platinum that shouldn't really count. Took 9 minutes to Platinum but I feel so dirty for playing it.

[Tabe]

Do yourself a favor and set aside a few hours and watch this OUTSTANDING documentary on the Xbox. Seriously, just go watch:

 

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0il2l-B_WwadxfTkK3-NLoYNcQEHdBGO

Edited December 27, 2021 by Tabe

[supremebve]

I beat Guardians of the Galaxy last night, and it's one of the most enjoyable video game experiences I've had in years.  It's pretty much a linear action game that doesn't break any new ground, but it's really fucking fun.  It is buggy as shit though.  There are very few game breaking bugs, but the last mission slowed down multiple times, there were a couple times where I couldn't figure something out and it turned out the game glitched and the prompt didn't pop up, and the music, which is one of the biggest selling points of this game sounded like it was not mixed right and was kind of muted not matter how I changed the audio settings.  Even with those problems, I loved it.  The biggest problem I have with modern videogames is that they are too long and too big.  This is just the right size and just the right length.  It's funny, the story is really good and really well told, and the game ends right as you start to feel like you have a great grasp on the combat.  

 

[NikoBaltimore]

I have had various sound issues where the subtitles were there but no voices.  That and I did have a game-breaking glitch though didn't check again to see if that fixed itself.  I really do like the game though need to get around to playing more of it.

[J.T.]

I haven't had any sound issues with GoTG but the Galactic Compendium collectables are hella broken.

[Mike Campbell]

My wife and I finished the main story of "Immortals Fenyx Rising" last night. It's very challenging, but in the fun way that makes you really proud of yourself when you figure out the puzzle or what to do to get over that seemingly impossibly high wall to the next section of the game.  It's not exactly child friendly with some of the dialogue. At one point you rescue Ares after he was turned into a chicken, and Aphrodite asks him if he has any chicken left, he says no, and she says "Some fantasies are best left unfulfilled"

[Chaos]

14 hours ago, J.T. said:

I haven't had any sound issues with GoTG but the Galactic Compendium collectables are hella broken.

Not sure how far you are, but I accidentally got the bad ending around the middle of the game, and it took a minute to figure out how to redo the sequence to avoid it because if you load, you load right back into it. 

[Craig H]

PS5 totally crashed the other day. Went to install a game for my daughter, it goes to update, and then crashes saying the system is corrupt. I have to then totally reinstall the system software and re-download everything, which Comcast didn't appreciate since I went over my 1.2 TB limit for the month. You get one overage for free though so it's not all bad, but what a pain in the ass. 

[Craig H]

BTW, question for those with 2 Playstations or a kid when the parents are divorced and there's a Playstation in each home...

My daughter got a PS4 Pro at her mom's house, but when she signed in with her account over there, she wasn't able to do anything. She couldn't purchase any games or anything like that. Shouldn't she be able to use that PS4 Pro at the other house as her main system and just use her account at my house for when we play multiplayer games or when she wants to play one of my installed games on her account without messing up the save file on my account? 

[Raziel]

No, PS accounts are locked to the main account's main console.  If she's the main PSN account, make sure her mom's PS4 is the account's main console, then she should be able to use yours as a secondary so long as you're the main there.

If her account is a secondary of yours, it's going to be based on your account/main system, not hers.

[madl]

Is it widely known that the official PS5 faceplates/covers being released by Sony next month exclusive to Sony's PS store for a month?  I somehow read several articles when the covers were announced and didn't realize that.  i was basically planning to pick up one from the Best Buy on release day.  Stumbled across them on the PSN store today and realized that the first batch won't hit third-party retailers until Feb. 18.  Sony is promising delivery of orders placed through them on Jan. 21.

I'm assuming most of us know this, but I'm mentioning this for anyone who missed it like I did.  

[RIPPA]

As I didn't get any games for Xmas this year - I am trying to remember the last time that happened and it has been a long fucking time.

And that isn't a complaint since I already had a huge backlog and having Game Pass knocked a bunch of things I normally would have asked for off. (Granted I could have asked for some Playstation titles but I just decided to wait to get a PS5)

I did get another XBOX wireless controller, N7 pajamas and another Tali T-shirt so it isn't like I wasn't getting video game stuff.

[Craig H]

58 minutes ago, Raziel said:

No, PS accounts are locked to the main account's main console.  If she's the main PSN account, make sure her mom's PS4 is the account's main console, then she should be able to use yours as a secondary so long as you're the main there.

If her account is a secondary of yours, it's going to be based on your account/main system, not hers.

Well, that sucks. She isn't the main account on my PS5. I wound up just creating a name for her so she could play couch co-op games with me. 

This shit shouldn't be this complicated or frustrating.

[Andrew POE!]

Got my 240th Platinum trophy with Pic-a-Pix Pieces on PSVita. I sorta like those games although they tend to be time consuming and a bit tedious.

[John E. Dynamite]

Games are good. I have so many good games.

I am so glad that Yakuza 6 feels a mite unfinished. After playing every other mainline game in the series before this one (PS2 games instead of Kiwamis) I am not starved for content. I love bowling, but I know how it goes. Like I'm glad 0 got all this love but it felt long to me after the overload of 5. 6 is gonna end before it makes me exhausted, thank goodness.

A Gamestop hadTrackMania DS for like 5 dollars so I bought it. Been meaning to check the seried out. I tried like 30 times to beat the second practice mission of Platform Mode. Brutal.

Pushmo should be Nintendo's main puzzle franchise, I don't know why it isn't bigger than it is. Such a purely enjoyable concept. Next Nintendo console should have some big Pushmo compilation at launch.

Whatever big game I commit to next might be on the Wii U. Pushing the button to make it go from TV to gamepad feels like a Switch but lazier since you don't have to stand up. My inner sloth slowly cackles each time. The Wind Waker remake is just aces and I'm pretty sure there's games like Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze, Wonderful 101, and Pikmin 3 that are like the same damn thing as the shiny Switch versions at a fraction of the price. Oh and they got the GBA Mario 3 with the crazy e-Reader levels already built in. You know Nintendo's not releasing that shit ever again!

Maybe 3/4ths done with The End is Nigh and you can just makes these McMillan masochist platformers all you want, I'll buy them. They're cozy to me. But this game's insistence on wiggle-jumping your way towards edges to grab feels like a crapshoot - that's the reason it's inferior to Meat Boy, not the fact that it's so similar.

What the Golf! Is scratching a Katamari itch of all things. Very pleased with the amount of content, just when the levels feel repetitive they put out some new goofy thing and it's a natural fit for a handheld.