Comments 833

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (June 3-4)

everynowandben

On Thursday I rolled credits on Zelda: TotK. Of course I didn't do everything, but I don't plan on going back in until the inevitable DLC releases. Too many other games to play!

Yesterday I played through the entirety of Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath - Vengeance of the Slayer which was amazing in so many ways. It's a 5-hour comedic gross-out boomer shooter made by a fictional character from the game Hypnospace Outlaw. Being in my late 30s, I thought it was hilarious.

I also started up the System Shock remake yesterday, and got through the first level. This game is tough! The original is often credited as the grandfather of immersive simulations, and I can see how this game inspired the likes of Bioshock and Prey (2017), but it's not really an immersive sim in and of itself. The remake doesn't seem to have updated the old school design philosophy at all, for better or for worse. Looking forward to diving back in and running around with a very limited sense of where to go and what to do next!

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (May 27-28)

everynowandben

I'm mostly playing Zelda: TotK, but I did start Wolfenstein: TNC the other day just to change things up a bit. I didn't get further than about 30 minutes, but it was fun and I will certainly stick with it. Foolish to think I might be able to finish it before the System Shock remake comes out though, so it will have to sit on the back burner for now.

The guys and I finally beat Redfall a couple days ago, so we're moving on to something else, but not sure what yet. We might try out Omega Strikers or just hop back into Sea of Thieves or Gears 5.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (May 20-21)

everynowandben

I tried the Street Fighter 6 open beta last night. I don't think it's a game for me. It might be more fun if I was playing against friends, or even against the computer, but I uninstalled it fairly quickly.

In a fighting game mood, I also booted up Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe which I've never played before. I thought it might be like Injustice, which I loved. It is like Injustice in many ways, but it's also pretty different. One key difference is that Injustice is a great game, and MKVSDCU is somewhere between lackluster and terrible in just about every way possible.

Of course I'm also going through Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom which is an absolute blast.

Re: Talking Point: How Satisfied Are You With PC Game Pass Right Now?

everynowandben

I use it all the time. Honestly I don't use my Series X much anymore since I got a decent PC around New Year's.

I think GP for PC is amazing. There are games on it that are not on Xbox like Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Quake 4, and also certain games like Dishonored 2 are not 60 fps on Xbox. I haven't tried Squarons in VR, but as mentioned in the article, that's there too.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (May 13-14)

everynowandben

Finished up Jedi: Survivor yesterday. I really enjoyed my time with it. Amazing game.

Started Zelda: TotK yesterday. I am very impatient to get the paraglider or whatever its called, hahaha... I only got through the tutorial yesterday so hopefully I won't need to wait much longer. Overall I'm super excited to play this game for the next month or so!

The guys and I also played some more Redfall last night. We're really starting to pick apart the shortcomings as we get further into it, but we're still having fun with this one!

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (May 6-7)

everynowandben

I'm about 2/3 of the way through Jedi: Survivor and loving it. Played some more Redfall last night with the guys, too. One of them couldn't make it, so the rest of us started a new file on one of their accounts instead of mine, each of us choosing new characters and whatnot, and we ended up just as far along as we were in our original playthrough. People are dumping all over these games, but I'm having a blast with them, and I'm playing both on PC. Neither are perfect, but they both work well enough to be fun.

Re: Atomic Heart's First DLC Teased For Summer 2023 Release On Xbox

everynowandben

Hugely disappointed with this one. It's just not very fun to play. I keep wanting to give it another chance too, but every time I play it, I turn it off within 20-30 minutes. Still, for some reason I do feel compelled to see it through. I'm sure I'll beat this one at some point, but it's been chilling on the backburner for a while. I will certainly not be paying for or playing the DLC.

Re: Random: Redfall Players Are Encountering Some Hilarious Glitches On Xbox

everynowandben

I've seen a number of glitches and weird stuff so far including being randomly booted to menu, animations for movement not working on both teammates and enemies, my buddy was floating about 2 feet off the ground for a few minutes, then later he was vibrating up and down super fast about waist deep into the floor for about 5 minutes, textures not loading in correctly, and one graphical glitch where a 20 foot spike was coming out of a downed enemy's head. I've played about 4 hours total, and honestly my friends and I have really been enjoying it. That being said, it is not of the quality I expect from Arkane, and it definitely deserves all the flack that it's getting.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 29-30)

everynowandben

I started Hi Fi Rush earlier this week, hoping to finish it quickly, but this did not go as planned, and now I will not be back before completing Jedi: Survivor. I'm playing on PC (4080, 13700k), and while the frame is not rock solid, dropping the settings from Ultra to High and turning off ray-tracing makes a gigantic difference and I'm getting 60 frames most of the time in 4k. I'm not trying to defend the state of the game, just saying that it's not the Cyberpunk mess people are making it out to be. So far it's really fun, and I'm loving my time with it. Might play some more Sea of Thieves with the guys tonight too.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 22-23)

everynowandben

I finished the Horizon: Forbidden West - Burning Shores DLC yesterday, and really enjoyed it. I loved the new area and characters, and the graphics were some of the best I've seen on a console.

Today I'm going to try and finish Forgive Me Father, and I'm on the second to last level. These last few have been absolutely brutal, but overall it's a great game.

Not sure what I'm going to play next before Jedi: Survivor. Something short. Maybe Hi-Fi Rush.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 15-16)

everynowandben

I was going to dive into Ghostwire Tokyo this weekend after a crazy week at work, but I'm quite sure I will not be able to finish it before the Horizon FW: Burning Shores DLC comes out on Wednesday, so I'm going to skip Ghostwire for now and play something shorter in the meantime. I'm planning on finishing up Resident Evil Survivor which is kinda terrible, but I still want to see it through, and then also I want to start up Forgive Me Father which I recently picked up in the Humble Bundle for boomer shooters. It looks amazing and on the short side, which is exactly what I'm looking for right now. Also, I haven't played with the guys in a while, but we're planning on getting back into Sea of Thieves tonight after quite a hiatus.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 8-9)

everynowandben

Yesterday morning I beat the Fire Emblem Engage Fell Xenologue. I played it on hard (FE is the only game I play on hard) and it was indeed much more difficult than the normal game since weapon and character options are extremely limited. I almost can't believe I beat the final boss as it was a grueling slog to say the least. The story was over the top stupid, but the maps were actually very good imo. Overall it was great and I was very happy to play through it.

Then I decided to give The Quarry a shot as I'm just not getting on with Atomic Heart. I only played a little bit after work last night but so far it's exactly what I was expecting - in a good way. Can't wait to see and vaguely choose what happens next!

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 1-2)

everynowandben

I finished Spirits of Xanadu this morning. It was okay. Based on descriptions and skimming reviews, I thought it would have more of an imm-sim feel, but it really doesn't. While there are some vague similarities to games like System Shock, Prey, and Soma, the game is pretty basic and shallow. It was only about 2 hours long and I only paid a couple bucks for it, so, no big loss.

I'm not sure what to play next. I'll probably try to finish up Atomic Heart, but we'll see. That insane April Fools joke but also actually real The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is peaking my curiosity.

I think the guys and I are going to play some Sea of Thieves tonight as it's been quite a while, but we may end up going through a bit more of Gears 5. I wish my one friend had a PC so we could try out some Midnight Ghost Hunt as the early access version is free on Steam this weekend. Oh well.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (March 25-26)

everynowandben

I actually took the day off work yesterday to play Resident Evil 4, and so far it is incredible. That being said, I don't want to blow through it too fast, so I took a break to play through Say No! More. I found it mostly enjoyable, but even at only 2 hours, it's stretching the concept a little further than it can truly support with interesting gameplay. I also installed the Diablo 4 beta to play with the guys last night, but one of them didn't even start downloading it by the time we were going to play, so while I did play the beta by myself for about 5 minutes, it wasn't really the experience I was hoping to have. Even so, I've never play Diablo before, and I'm not sure it was for me anyway. Maybe if/when it comes to Game Pass, the guys and I can try it again properly. We did play the F2P kart racing game KartRider: Drift which was pretty lame tbh. Not sure why my buddy wanted to even give it a shot, but we did, and it was bad, and never again. Looking forward to getting back into RE4, but, I did also pick up a few games in the recent steam sale, and I might take a look at Chop Goblins before work tomorrow. It's supposed to be only an hour long, and it looks like a blast.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (March 18-19)

everynowandben

Focusing on Hogwarts now after finishing up Fire Emblem Engage. I'm not done with Atomic Heart, but I'm putting it down for now. I was playing too many games at once and needed to scale back. That being said, I am also playing through Gears 5 with the guys, but we probably won't be able to get to it this weekend as I have actually have a date tonight 😎 lol

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (February 25-26)

everynowandben

On vacation, and couldn't start Fire Emblem Engage on the plane yesterday due to no internet to check to see if I could play it 😑

Then I booted up Hogwarts Legacy on my laptop but there was no internet to sync my save from the cloud from when I played earlier at home on my PC 🥲

So I powered on my Miyoo Mini and played through Metal Slug X.

Bad weather here so ended up watching a friend play through the first 2 hours of Hogwarts on my laptop since she was unsure about getting the game for herself due to being apprehensive about how much of the game is combat. Turned on "story" difficulty and boom, no problem. It was fun to see her make different choices than I did and watch how they did or didn't play out differently compared to my own playthrough.

Re: Review: Atomic Heart - An Interesting Alt-History Crusade, But Not A True Great

everynowandben

I really want to love this game as I've been following it for a long time, but it's just okay for me so far. I'm only maybe 90 minutes in, so it may be too early to say too much though. I'm going to play through the whole thing either way, but there are some major flaws in my opinion that I'm seeing already. The combat feels kind of bad as far as control responsiveness - the hit detection just feels off sometimes. The worst part of the game in my opinion is the voice acting - absolutely abysmal, especially the main character. I immediately hate him and wish he would just shut up. He acts like a total jerk for no reason, and not in a funny way. The way the voice actor says a lot of his lines is like he's reading the words for the first time and not really acting, like the flow of speech is just unnatural and the emphasis is off on certain syllables and/or words in the sentence. It's very distracting and immersion breaking for me. Also, there's a part in a tunnel where I was frustratingly insta-killed no less than 3 times, and I still have no idea why or how I died and I guess I just got lucky the 4th time playing the same dumb little platforming section. I think maybe something was falling on me? I just went really slowly the 4th time and nothing happened. 🤷‍♂️ The story in general is also kind of lame and poorly told so far, but maybe it will get more interesting as it goes on. The game really wants to be like Bioshock or Prey, but it's a pretty pale imitation - at least as far I've seen ~90 minutes in. I'm hoping it will get more interesting as it goes on and some of the imm sim elements will start to shine through, but unfortunately I'm not feeling super optimistic about that at this point. There doesn't appear to be many in game systems to play with or much player choice in tackling challenges. It doesn't seem to fully understand what makes the games its inspired by so immersive and satisfying. The in game world itself seems pretty cool though, and I like the style and setting, even if it does come across somewhat derivative.

I'm playing on PC with a 4080 and 13700k, so I have to say it does look and run extremely well for me at 4k/60fps with everything on max settings. If you're having issues with screen tearing on PC, there are some odd workarounds... If you have an NVIDIA card --> turn on frame generation regardless of if you can/will actually use it, and restart the game --> that will allow you to actually turn on v-sync for some reason, but then you also have to force v-sync on through the NVIDIA control panel because turning it on in the game doesn't actually turn it on. Doing all that worked like a charm for me, anyway.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (February 4-5)

everynowandben

Halfway through Fire Emblem Engage, third of the way through Dead Space, and about a third of the way through FIST Forged In Shadow Torch. FIST is not that great - it's like the more I play it the less I like it. The combat just doesn't feel good to me. I might even just drop it completely because I'm not really having fun with it anymore. FEE and DS on the other hand are both absolutely incredible games that I love every second with.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (January 14-15)

everynowandben

Got together with the guys last night and played a whole bunch of old Dreamcast games like Power Stone 2, Gauntlet Legends, and Rush 2049. We also played some GameCube multiplayer classics such as Wario Ware, Mario Power Tennis, Kirby Air Ride, and Geist. What a night!

Solo, I'm playing more of F.I.S.T. on PC. Its good so far, but the combat feels a bit clunky - you must commit to your attack moves in a way that doesn't feel fluid or dynamic, but it's not enough of an "issue" to ruin it for me. Also, I learned from Digital Foundry that you have to force the anisotropic filtering outside of in-game settings for this one, and I'm glad I did because it made a significant difference!

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (January 7-8)

everynowandben

This weekend I'm playing Neon Struct and Severed Steel, two very different games with vaguely similar art styles. SS is way too intense to play for long sessions, so having NS to chill out for a minute has been nice. These games coincidentally compliment each other quite well. Might play a bit of Prodeus with the guys tonight - super cool the campaign is co-op.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (December 31 - January 1)

everynowandben

I got my new PC assembled on Thursday and up and running last night (typing this on it now 😊) so I'm picking up my playthrough of A Plague Tale: Requiem where I left off. Played a bit last night too at a super smooth 4k/60fps on pretty much the highest settings and it was glorious. Can't wait to go through the second half of the game now and seeing everything it has to offer.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (December 17-18)

everynowandben

I'm about 1/4 of the way through A Plague Tale: Requiem and so far, so good. Playing the PC version for the extra frames. I'm loving everything about it. The graphics and art direction are fantastic, and the story is great so far. The gameplay mechanics are clever and fun, like a cross between the old Thief games and the newer Tomb Raider games, both of which are some of my all time favorites. Good stuff! Highly recommended.