2024 VIDEO GAMES CATCH ALL THREAD

[Craig H]

Any of my fellow Helldivers get to serve up a hot cup of libertea in the mechs yet?

[Death From Above]

The missiles are really good against the heavy bugs for sure. The machine gun makes a joke out of bug breach. If the mech blows up you instantly die, because Helldivers. Having them for free as part of the debut definitely tilts the scales.

[Zimbra]

That first boss fight was the one everyone hated so much that they overhauled it significantly in one of the patches so this is even the (theoretically) better version.

Been playing 40K Inquisitor again because destroying waves of enemies as a big stompy space marine is always satisfying.

[Villanova Grad]

Apparently he didn’t get the memo that renting is great for the industry.

 

[Setsuna]

On 3/1/2024 at 12:31 PM, Kang said:

I only make easy to medium levels in Mario Maker. Sometimes weird layout levels.  I have beat very hard levels, but I do not like playing them.

I play maker 2 way too much. 

Would you be open to sharing your maker code? I'd love too check out your levels. 

[Villanova Grad]

Finished Lies of P last night and really enjoyed it.  Probably one of the more memorable  PS4/PS5 games I’ve played in awhile.  I think I enjoyed it more than Bloodborne (which is a clear inspiration).

Rise of the Ronin previews have me in the mood to dive back into Ninja Gaiden (2004).  One of my favorite games, but I’ve never finished the original release.  I have rolled credits on Ninja Gaiden Black multiple times & played through NG Sigma once or twice, but it’s time to beat the vanilla version.  

Edited March 12 by Villanova Grad

[Death From Above]

Helldivers 2 still has too many crashes and glitches, but the fact I still thoroughly enjoy the game despite that says a lot. It also gives me newfound respect for Warframe and how in the year I dumped so much free time into it, that game basically never crashed at all.

Honestly once Helldivers 2 sorts out some of the common issues there's nothing standing in the way of it being multiplayer game of the year, at all. The amount of action you get out of a single session especially on the higher difficulties is almost an overwhelming amount of stimulus.

[Casey]

I personally love that they stealth introduced a new enemy type (flying bugs) with the latest patch.

The story moving along already is great too, I love what they’re doing. The tease of mechs a week ago, then the introduction of them, and now the new mission type to eradicate the bugs that’ll almost surely result in them being forever changed somehow. The little bits of lore during the missions that indicate Super Earth raise the bugs like cattle and put them on planets to continue the business of war.

I haven’t played too many GAAS, but this is how they should be. Not waiting for a major expansion to continue the story, but doing it weekly through small things in the game helps tremendously with player immersion.

[A.M.B.]

On 3/12/2024 at 7:21 AM, Villanova Grad said:

Finished Lies of P last night and really enjoyed it.  Probably one of the more memorable  PS4/PS5 games I’ve played in awhile.  I think I enjoyed it more than Bloodborne (which is a clear inspiration).

Rise of the Ronin previews have me in the mood to dive back into Ninja Gaiden (2004).  One of my favorite games, but I’ve never finished the original release.  I have rolled credits on Ninja Gaiden Black multiple times & played through NG Sigma once or twice, but it’s time to beat the vanilla version.  

I actually just beat Lies of P last night as well and absolutely loved it. I’d love to see Neowiz take on more projects like this if FromSoftware is gonna keep making their games bigger and bigger. I was inspired to replay Bloodborne afterwards, but about 15 minutes in I couldn’t get passed how choppy and downright terrible the 30 fps felt and couldn’t get back into it.

Rise of the Ronin is aesthetically right up my alley, but I’ve heard some mixed reviews so far. Looks dangerously close to an Ubisoft checklist open world game. I really hope it’s great tho.

[Death From Above]

11 hours ago, Casey said:

I personally love that they stealth introduced a new enemy type (flying bugs) with the latest patch.

The story moving along already is great too, I love what they’re doing. The tease of mechs a week ago, then the introduction of them, and now the new mission type to eradicate the bugs that’ll almost surely result in them being forever changed somehow. The little bits of lore during the missions that indicate Super Earth raise the bugs like cattle and put them on planets to continue the business of war.

I haven’t played too many GAAS, but this is how they should be. Not waiting for a major expansion to continue the story, but doing it weekly through small things in the game helps tremendously with player immersion.

Years ago there was a thread about proposing your dream video game, and I went into a bunch of detail about why I think most of the "survive zombie hordes" games haven't got where I want them to. And one of the things I proposed* that they weren't doing was a city-scape version of what Helldivers 2 does with the galaxy map where you have literal live updates on player and alien progress in every corner of the galaxy. It's a really good way of making even average players feel like they're a part of something way bigger and that your contribution matters on some level, and I'm really mystified why more games haven't done it because it's such a simple looking tool that has done a lot to bring a community into your world. Then you also have the galaxy wide orders, and the sense there's a real evolving world out there with the content ads. Honestly on a sheer gameplay design level I'm so impressed with Helldivers 2 as a game because it just checks so many boxes.

 

(*I also wanted real time destructible and rebuildable environments that felt more organic, which we now have the tech for. I also asked for a game where you had separate skill trees from the human and zombie side and could play as either, and still I'm fucking waiting on that one come on man.)

[Andrew POE!]

Got my 330th Platinum trophy with KIllzone HD. Watching movies has made me slow down a bit on trophy hunting thankfully.

[Craig H]

Beyond the first couple days, I haven't had any issues with bugs or anything like that in Helldivers 2. I should say, any major issues.

We ran into one issue two nights ago where when picking up the SSSD Drive, I dropped it to shoot at some bugs, then picked up again, then dropped it again, and I was T-posed. And then for about 10 to 15 minutes my friends and I were fucking dying of laughter at how ridiculous I looked. What made it better, or worse, was I could not die. I just kept surviving.

The one from last night might not have been a bug. We were doing the new mission to defend the silos. We had an easy time with the first two silos, but on the third we couldn't even get it to 60% before it would become critically unstable and then reset. Other times it would just go from stable, to unstable (not even critically unstable) and it would be unstable for maybe a second before it would reset. And we went through this shit for 25 minutes until we lost.

BTW, this was on Impossible. So we were feeling pretty good about things until those last 25 minutes. Then we figured, ok, lets load up on sentries, Stalwarts, and landmines while one of us grabs a mech, someone grabs the orbital laser and some other orbital shit. We got through the first two again pretty easily, got up to 80% on the last and then it reset. We then got to 99% and it reset with a bile titan in the vicinity but no bugs attacking the silo. We had 20 minutes left to go. At the 10 minute mark we were down to 0 reinforcements, 1 guy alive, and the thing would always reset at 20% or so. So my buddy is by himself just trying to survive until he can do a reinforcement. While he's doing that, he starts the countdown on the silo again and this time the silo isn't pulling any aggro or bug breaches or anything. The bugs that were there were just trying to kill my friend. So he brings one of us back, we make it to where a third one can be brought back, and the silo isn't resetting. Barely any bugs attack it and we're just running around the far outside area of it. Not far enough to not see down at the bottom, but far enough away. It hits 100%, we complete that part of the mission, go to the extraction site, and finish the thing off.

It was one of the most heart pounding and agonizing and rewarding experiences I've had in a game. It felt like it was bugged, but we somehow did it.

And as I was typing that out in between deaths, I noticed another bug that still isn't that big of a deal. So when using the riot shield and the submachine gun, you will T-pose if you pick up any samples or anything else really. However, you can fix it by switching to your sidearm and then switching back to your main weapon. It never resulted in a death or anything and it happened enough that I'm sure it's happening to others so it will probably get fixed quickly.

As it stands, this is probably my game of the year at this point? My one complaint is that Helldive is fucking impossible and I don't understand how people can solo on Helldive. It's just tons of chargers, bile titans, and spewers. We counted 6 bile titans on screen at one point. It was a little excessive. We didn't last long, tried Helldive again, and went back to the Suicide and Impossible difficulties.

[Death From Above]

Are you on console or PC? I've been having a lot of rando crashes on PC but I just power through.

[RIPPA]

 

[AxB]

Finished Deus Ex Human Revolution. Having a trophy just for watching the credits to the end is some bullshit.

Now playing Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4. Hasn't crashed once, but then I'm less than an hour in, so that's not saying much.

[Cliff Hanger]

I think from here on out, I'm just gonna buy anything Digital Eclipse produces. They put out the first commercial package of emulated games nearly 30 years ago, and even for stuff like the new Llamasoft pack where I have a pre-existing affection for exactly one game that I already had in the Atari 50 collection, I know I'm gonna get my money's worth when I buy their shit.

[dragonzombie]

Command and Conquer on the N64, the graphics were 3D instead of 2D.

https://youtu.be/CZtkVXjqHM0?si=FzLqJcJ9mBjj99i8

[Death From Above]

I had that!

[Craig H]

On 3/14/2024 at 1:23 AM, Death From Above said:

Are you on console or PC? I've been having a lot of rando crashes on PC but I just power through.

I'm on PC. I haven't had a single crash since day 2 or day 3 when things were probably at their shakiest. May just be an issue with the combination of your hardware. If you haven't, you may want to give the issue your having along with your PC specs to them on their official Discord. I doubt you're the only one experiencing this.

We had some major, huge success tonight on Impossible. Everything was just clicking for us. Completed a 3 mission operation walking away with all of the Super Samples in each mission, and the final mission we somehow managed to complete the main objectives, every side objective, every bug nest, 26 common samples, 15 rare samples, and 3 super samples. We've never had that kind of success before. For whatever reason, the Walking Barrage strategem was kicking ass every time my friend used it. Honestly, the biggest help was the 4 of us all bringing mechs with us and we timed their deployments well enough that we were always able to deal with a huge bug breach. Oh, and one of us used the orbital EMS strike and another brought the EMS mortar. OH! And the major order got completed while we were playing so that ruled. 

Given how easy this major order was, I'm afraid they're going to say, "oh, that was so easy for you? Enjoy the next 4 major orders being on Automaton planets with Hulks that have double health and a smaller weak spot. ENJOY!"

What I would really like is for them to fix or figure out cross play and cross save/cross progression just because there are times where I don't feel like leaving my couch and going to the gaming PC.

[Death From Above]

I tried chacking the integrity of my game files and it found a problem there, it's seemed much more stable since so maybe that did it.

[Cliff Hanger]

The Llamasoft Gold Master Collection isn't as cool as the Karateka one, but it's still fascinating. I wasn't really aware of Minter til Tempest 2000 and the DOS version of Llamatron 2112, so I'm learning a LOT. I hope DE gets to keep making these for the rest of my life because I'm gonna buy every single one.

[JLSigman]

In my quest to find all the old ARPGs I used to own back before Steam was a thing, I picked up Torchlight and Torchlight II for less than $7 during the Steam Spring sale. Torchlight is still as charming as ever.

[Zimbra]

Torchlight is great, I put a few hundred hours into the 360 port.  I felt like II got away from what made the first one fun: being simple and quick and light.  

The pet mechanic is great and I wish every ARPG would rip that off.

[JLSigman]

1 hour ago, Zimbra said:

Torchlight is great, I put a few hundred hours into the 360 port.  I felt like II got away from what made the first one fun: being simple and quick and light.  

The pet mechanic is great and I wish every ARPG would rip that off.

I agree, I remember thinking T2 was a bit too long, too big, too much (and I've not bothered with III or the weird MMO-ish thing).

[Craig H]

Speaking of ARPGs, I know you’re both talking about some older ones, but I have to say that Lost Epoch does damn near everything right in an ARPG. It’s worlds better than D4, I think the multiplayer system and easier to understand upgrade system improves on  what Path of Exile does, and the combat is fun and engaging in a way similar to Lost Ark. It’s really fantastic.

My hope is that they continue making enough money to improve on cinematics and other presentation stuff so people maybe give it more of a consideration.