2026 VIDEO GAMES CATCH ALL THREAD

[odessasteps]

I liked the first one, but didn’t finish the second. Nothing wrong with it, I just tired of the slog at that 2/3 or 3/4 point that often hits me in really long games. Usually I finish for some reason, I didn’t on this one. 

[COLETTI]

9 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Can anyone tell me if I'd enjoy Horizon Zero Dawn?

I also liked everything you listed and really enjoyed both Horizon games and would absolutely classify it as "action adventure," with RPG elements no deeper than stuff like Control or God of War. I say go for it!

[COLETTI]

Double post~!!

Edited May 5 by COLETTI

[StevieNippz]

Horizon Zero Dawn is definitely worth checking out. I didn't love the sequel as much because it felt bloated but the original had a great balance, even with the DLC. 

 

Still playing a decent amount of Hades 2 to try out more weapons and wrap up the side quests. Been playing Vampire Crawlers on the Switch and it's right up my alley. I've got 6 other games in my backlog right now but I'm still tempted to get Saros. 

[Casey]

I'm obsessed with the Horizon games and lore. I've even read the comics, which I don't think a lot of people have lmao.

Zero Dawn's story is pretty great, IMO. The sequel is a step below but it's still pretty good, and somehow is even more fantastical than the first. I don't remember if I even started the DLC for that game, actually.

[Contentious C]

Probably the closest comparison game to HZD might actually be Witcher 3, if you ask me, but with a stealth component and weapon variety. I suppose that might be why others compare it to AssCreed, but I never played any of them and probably never will.

Would second how good the story is: probably a top 10 all-time contender if plot and writing are things you care about. 

[odessasteps]

Id say first game is really good, but as others said, the second may be a little bloated, with too many companion types and locations, and some dubious plot choices. 

[Technico Support]

Thanks for the responses, all!  I’ll give it a shot.  I’ve never played any Ubisoft games, since it was asked.  

[J.T.]

Missed the Gone In 360 Seconds achievement by mere seconds. We had a pesky outpost that was guarded by heavies and our laser guided missiles targeted the heavies rather than the outpost. Took us an extra minute to demo the outpost up close and we could not shave off the time during extraction because the game was stupid and put an army of bugs between us and the LZ.

Oh well, I'll try again over the weekend during the new Major Order.

On the plus side, the community somehow managed to keep planet Turing from being conquered by the bugs. We need to get better about objectives and recognize that if a planet has cities under siege, it might not be a bad idea to focus on them first and get the liberation bonus.

[Zimbra]

We're most of the way through Slime Rancher 2 and enjoying it immensely.  The first one never clicked for me because I couldn't get a clear sense of progression, but this one really worked.

I also bought myself Star Wars: Outlaws as a late bday gift to myself and woof, this is not good.

[RIPPA]

44 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

I also bought myself Star Wars: Outlaws as a late bday gift to myself and woof, this is not good.

Awww - you should have taken the hint when I attempted to play it a few months ago and bounced fairly early

At least that was via Game Pass

[Zimbra]

Yeah, I foolishly thought it would be "fun bad" instead of "boring bad."  At least it was like 75% off.

[Technico Support]

I played the beginning of Horizon and got to the part where they cut to older Aloy.  Pretty fun!  Then the game prompts me to open A FUCKING SKILL TREE.  I was like Vader at the end of episode 3.  NOOOOOOOOOOOO

I’ll keep playing, but god damn.

[tbarrie]

20 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

I played the beginning of Horizon and got to the part where they cut to older Aloy.  Pretty fun!  Then the game prompts me to open A FUCKING SKILL TREE.  I was like Vader at the end of episode 3.  NOOOOOOOOOOOO

Is it the tree metaphor you don't like? Would a skill bush be better? What if you started at the top of the screen, so it was more of a skill root system?

[Technico Support]

19 minutes ago, tbarrie said:

Is it the tree metaphor you don't like? Would a skill bush be better? What if you started at the top of the screen, so it was more of a skill root system?

For me, it’s a matter of having to constantly memorize new shit, along with FOMO messing with my OCD brain, like “what if I upgrade the wrong thing or don’t upgrade something I need to?!”  I like it better when games just level up my skills automatically without having to pick and choose and learn shit when I’m just trying to enjoy a game.

Edited May 6 by Technico Support

[Casey]

It doesn't really matter, you max out the skill tree. It's not one of those where you have to pick what you want and not be able to use something else.

And the "skills" are more or less just upgrades on things like aiming, speeds up healing, increasing override times on machines, etc. There's a handful that are actual new abilities, ALL of them tied to the R1 button lol

[tbarrie]

15 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

For me, it’s a matter of having to constantly memorize new shit, along with FOMO messing with my OCD brain, like “what if I upgrade the wrong thing or don’t upgrade something I need to?!”  I like it better when games just level up my skills automatically without having to pick and choose and learn shit when I’m just trying to enjoy a game.

Interesting. So it's not skill trees specifically you dislike - you don't like any system for choosing your character's skills? Or are you okay with making a character at the start, but object to having to make further choices during the game itself?

[SirSmUgly]

Zero Dawn is the shit, man. Great game, one of my absolute favorites.

Forbidden West was bloated, but the best things about it are a) Aloy, especially the A+ voice acting job of the actor who portrays her, and b) the fun of stalking big machines and fucking them up real bad. 

Don't be daunted by the skill tree like Casey says. I think that if you're stressed by having to make those types of choices, the weapon stuff where you upgrade them with various bonuses is the thing that's sort of annoying (but still manageable). 

[Casey]

This got me wanting to play the Remaster just to see how it looks/runs natively on a PS5, and I'm quite annoyed that it's the ONLY first party Sony game that has a PS5 version/remaster where you can transfer your save file from the "old" game and the trophies do not autopop. I don't mind to replay the game, considering it's probably in my top 5 games I've ever played, but that's so fucking annoying. And apparently if you've already gotten most of the trophies in your transferred save file, some/most don't pop while doing the action required. Some people have reported talking to a vendor, for example, and getting a previously earned trophy for something completely unrelated that just happens to be in that area.

I guess I won't do that and just do a fresh game with no PS4 save files.

[SirSmUgly]

It looks great.

I didn't bother transferring my save, though. I just ran through the whole game again. I can report that it still rules and that the DLC is still one of the best bits of DLC content that I have ever played.

[Casey]

3 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said:

It looks great.

I didn't bother transferring my save, though. I just ran through the whole game again. I can report that it still rules and that the DLC is still one of the best bits of DLC content that I have ever played.

Which is funny to me, since the game already looked great. It's one of those situations like TLOU2, where it didn't need a remaster, because they already did witchcraft with the PS4 version of those games.

[SirSmUgly]

24 minutes ago, Casey said:

Which is funny to me, since the game already looked great. It's one of those situations like TLOU2, where it didn't need a remaster, because they already did witchcraft with the PS4 version of those games.

I played it maybe a couple years ago now, but what most markedly improved was the load times. Guerrilla talked to the people at Sucker Punch and got good intel.

[odessasteps]

I played the PS4 didc version on my PS5 because i rented from the local library when they had video games to check out. 

[Technico Support]

2 hours ago, tbarrie said:

Interesting. So it's not skill trees specifically you dislike - you don't like any system for choosing your character's skills? Or are you okay with making a character at the start, but object to having to make further choices during the game itself?

The latter.  My specific problems are having to memorize new attacks and things like that — God of War was like that.  I’m just trying to enjoy a game, not learn a brand new button combo every time I level up slightly.  And also, like I mentioned, worrying about missing some important upgrade because I upgraded something else that wasn’t so important. @Casey telling me that there’s enough points to do the whole tree and that it’s all bound to the same button sounds great and alleviates all this.

One other note on skill trees is that I hate it when it’s obvious the developers put them there just to have one, and they really make no sense to be there.  Like Spider Man 1.  In storyline, Peter had been Spider Man for years at the start of the game.  What was the point of a skill tree then?  I can understand Miles having one in his game, but OG Spider Man having one in the first game was nonsense.

[Raziel]

The nice thing about the skill tree in Horizon is that it's mostly passive stuff and the non-passive stuff actually makes sense since Aloy's just starting out being a dystopian force of destruction, so the skills are natural (this also progresses nicely through Forbidden West)