Currently Playing

[Abs_McBain]

I have finished playing the System Shock Remake, and its pretty darn good. More of an action game rather than the survival horror of the sequel. I say that because I had far FAR too much ammo at the end of the game. Ended up throwing away 300 rounds for the SMG just to carry more Magnum or Railgun ammo. I did find the fanny pack in Storage though, which gives you six extra slots. In terms of atmosphere it kinda reminded me of Red Dwarf. I knows its meant to be claustrophobic and cramped which adds stress to a given situation but I just couldn’t stop myself from blurting out "smeg" every time a cyborg assassin pops out of the shadows. Kinda expected Kryten to show up and complain about the mess. They should have replaced the end credits song with RD’s.

Now i’ve begun a replay of Cyberpunk 2077, but on the Steam Deck. I am flabbergasted at how well it runs and looks, what a great little gaming portable! With console controls i’ve now taken a slower approach to the game. I can’t just Revolver Ocelot my way through the game now, as I did with a keyboard and mouse.

Talking about Revolver Ocelot I also replayed MGS1, but this time with the French dub, for lols. The voice actor for Ocelot is having a blast with his lines! Which also reminds me that Konami’s Master Collection won’t have the French, Spanish, German, or Italian dubs for MGS1. Regarding video game preservation, that is pretty bad. Konami continue to be shit with cost cutting and low effort re-releases.

[Animalmother]

Battlefield 2042, still playing this but it's less and less these days. They did a big update with a new map a few days ago that was supposed to be horror themed and hinted at possible zombies style mode like in CoD. Turned out to be nothing and the map is just a corridor based meat grinder that I hate. I'm also suspicious that cheaters are now on the console version as your seeing K/D ratios of 100/0, which is impossible in this game as somebody (including the AI) will always get you eventually just through sheer volume of gunfire and explosive spam.

[DjchunKfunK]

Cocoon

Completed this a few weeks back but forgot to post about it here. A really smart puzzle game with some very well designed puzzles that manages to provide a challenge that doesn't frustrate, instead it makes you feel smart ever time you figure out the solution. One of the best puzzle games I have played in a while. Alongside that are some great visuals and I never got tired of the way they did the transition between worlds. Up there with my favourite games of the year. Well worth checking out and it's available on Game Pass.

[Raid]

Cities Skylines II

Been looking forward to this for a while, having watched a fair number of pre-release videos. Booted it up, saw that I was getting maybe 15fps on a completely empty map, closed it 20 seconds later. I have a 13600KF, 32gb RAM and a 3080. I'll have a look at reducing details later when I have more time, but frankly it's unacceptable that they released it in this state. I'm just glad I got it through gamepass.

[Wrathbone]

I've just had a quick go via Gamepass and I'm getting a decent fps (I'd guess around 40-60), but I'm on a 4080 so I'd bloody well hope it could cope with a blank map. Even so, the fact that a 3080 struggles is ridiculous. Not sure it makes much difference, but the only thing I disabled in the graphics was motion blur, with everything else on full at 1440p.

[Sly Boots]

You know it's going to be bad when a publisher comes out before release to warn people it's bad

Sitting at 33% Mostly Negative on Steam after 3k reviews, most people citing the performance issues.

Hard to believe they thought they should release it in such a state, baffling really.

[Raid]

I turned off motion blur and depth of field and it certainly helped, but with any shadow setting, there's a truly hideous shimmering effect on *every* shadow on the map, caused by some form of aliasing and dithering, plus the movement of the sun. I'm not going to bother playing it in this state, and I look forward to them fixing it. It even runs extremely badly in the front-end menu, which is just a low-res static image under some very plain buttons and text boxes. I don't even know how that's possible.

It's ridiculous that they released it in this state. I can only assume the release was forced to meet a deadline, and that they're now going to be fighting tooth and nail to put it right, because this must be heartbreaking for the devs. I've watched all of the dev diaries that released weekly leading up to launch, and it's obvious that they love their game. For them to take the fairly unprecedented step to try and get ahead of the news and tell people that there are significant performance issues seems to have won a few people over, but this is going to be absolutely slated in user scores and has a chance of sinking the game entirely. People are going to be demanding refunds, hell, Microsoft might if the backlash is as bad as I'm expecting. That doesn't tend to end well for developers.

[Animalmother]

Dead Space
This came out on Game Pass today and is a reasonable 32Gb download. I only played for about 30 mins to get a feel for it and really liked what I see. Runs smooth as butter in both graphic and performance mode. Looks like they replaced all the character models and voice acting and Issac is now very chatty so I assume they had to rework the script.

I've played the original multiple times and it still scares the piss out of me with every loud noise and clanging door. Subtle little effect where you can hear your heartbeat increase when you see something fucked up. The enemies are hard as nails even on normal difficulty and freezing them is almost required to avoid taking damage. They look even more gross and detailed than the original.

Really looking forward to getting stuck into it over the next few days.

[Alan]

Disco Elysium
This game comes from an alternate timeline where point and click games kept evolving instead of this timeline where people said "fuck it, Broken Sword is good enough". In that timeline point and click games iterated and grew over the years, incorporating RPG elements like shooters did in this timeline. That was till the pinnacle of the genre was released which was good enough to break the barriers between realities and the code seeped into our own and for that I am thankful.

I put all stats into brain stuff and on day one I failed a skill check to pick up my tie and died of a heart attack. 10/10

I have since finished it and its quite special. Theres so much world building its almost too much! I think half of my dialogue was solely on the history of the place and thats awesome. I want to now go back and put everything into physical and see how it plays that way.

[Lenny Solidus]

Battlefield 2042

Ho boy. Never have I ever felt the inclination not to buy a game as much as I did this one, a disastrous launch and pretty much entire first year of reworking maps fixing horrible performance and generally moving the game beyond the realm of being shite culminating in DICE finally giving the fuck in and bring classes back into the game. You know, classes. The thing that has pretty much cemented the Battlefield experience since it's god-damn inception. How, DICE, how do you fuck up a Battlefield game so instrumentally and still expect everyone to just dog pile in anyway?

The £7 please buy me dick tease came along, gently prodding at my scrotum promising classic BF war like pleasures that are honestly sorta fixed now, or at least as close enough as you could possibly get. I gave in - and you know what - playing a support role mad dashing around throwing ammo boxes in peoples faces and reviving teammates under a cloud of smoke as bullets zip past my ears is very fun. As is bounding down a set of stairs and throwing an incendiary grenade directly into a group of suddenly bunny hopping enemies, then slapping down shield defences for my own team to make the not so delicate push forwards. Is it Bad Company 2 levels of excellence, it is not. Is it a fun team game with manic moments often impressive war like scenarios and feverish tug of wars in a corridor as big as your kitchen? Why yes, yes it is. And with that price drop the game went from a small 5k players to an impressive 65k 24 hour peak and has remained close to 30k at all times since. I've bought every battlefield game, even Hardline. I had to give it a shot and I'm glad I did.

It's still somewhat buggy, still in need of polish and should serve as a wake-up call to both EA and DICE to not be so foolish in the future (scoff sure they won't) but again for the £7 entry fee I believe I've already got a solid thirty to forty plus hours out of it that were surprisingly enjoyable and has that one more match factor.

Oh yes, btw if you do buy it and do just happen to see this screen after playing a previous match, count your lucky fucking stars because it is quite the bloody rarity I can assure you...

[Alan]

I got a month EA play.. whatever its called to play through Deadspace and I gave 2042 a shot and its just a meatgrinder. Everyones dying from everywhere, I dont get the fun. I actually hate it so much! I loved BF3 and the limit of 24 players was probably the number one reason since you actually mattered. It was also the last time hardcore mode was good. Oh and the close quarters expansion was fantastic! Mannnn, BF3 was great!


The Finals
This is a whole lot of fun but I hope the modes on offer in the final release are a lot more varied. The map doesn't really highlight the excellent destruction physics either. Gimme TDM is a small town setting and I'll be an explosive pig in deformable shit! The gunplay and movement feel great, I hope it doesn't squander it.

[Lenny Solidus]

I got a month EA play.. whatever its called to play through Deadspace and I gave 2042 a shot and its just a meatgrinder. Everyones dying from everywhere, I dont get the fun. I actually hate it so much! I loved BF3 and the limit of 24 players was probably the number one reason since you actually mattered. It was also the last time hardcore mode was good. Oh and the close quarters expansion was fantastic! Mannnn, BF3 was great!

It is a meatgrinder, Redacted especially so of course, but then it's 100% a nod to both Metro and Locker of old and is nothing but unadulterated the fuck is happening craziness start to finish. Sometimes you just want that kind of gaming session.

As for Conquest 64 there's a lot to like and a lot to hate mainly because the maps are not the greatest so finding the best ways to take advantage of them is key. Though winning servicing and winning a match particular as a squad leader coordinating your efforts taking posts and directing your team successfully just really genuinely does it for me - making sure the enemy team were unable to gain a single foothold in the process. Avoiding said death or at the very least embracing it and getting sweet revenge not soon after is what it's all about I've had some insane runs as the driver of an EBAA Wildcat absolutely decimating scores of enemies as a four-man rolling death scribe spotting targets and out manoeuvring tanks has honestly had me orchestrating some of the best moments I've had in a game in a very long time.

Meatgrinder or not, it's all been highly and unexpectedly memorable. Trust me when I say that I am as surprised I've found any semblance of enjoyment in the game as anyone yet currently at the least it just keeps dragging me back in for more.

Addition - just to explain the black screen issue properly just in case anyone gets an inkling to try out the game - the non-working loading screen in question has been present since the games bleeding beta and involves receiving a black screen where you are intended to be sent into a queue for another match, only the icon you see in my screen doesn't show up, so you have to close down the game and restart there's no other way to resolve. The games Steam discussion has endless posts about it, and it doesn't look like a fix will be coming any time soon. You would have thought given its new lease of player retention they would have made it a priority to fix but apparently not.

Ridiculous.

[Abs_McBain]

I want to now go back and put everything into physical and see how it plays that way.

I did see people complain about how Harry is unable to do the things they expected with high physical stats, while everyone else reminding them that you're probably playing him as a recovering alcholic and drug user again suffering god know what withdrawal symptoms.

My first playthrough of the game I poured most of my points into the attributes under psyche, you get to read some great writing from that skill set. So great that when I tried playing it again, I kept remembering how it played out first time and how I prefered that instead...Maybe i'll try playing it again in a year or two when its all a distant, faded memory. Its hard to top the first play though, the game even gave me a double six roll on fighting Measurehead!

[Alan]

I want to now go back and put everything into physical and see how it plays that way.

I did see people complain about how Harry is unable to do the things they expected with high physical stats, while everyone else reminding them that you're probably playing him as a recovering alcholic and drug user again suffering god know what withdrawal symptoms.

I just want to punch Cuno :p

[Raid]

So I did persevere with Cities Skylines II. The simulation seems to be pretty good, but honestly you need to put so much work into making anything look good because of the way the game handles terrain deformation. Put simply, the game is absolutely awful at handling varied terrain height, which results in some hideous borders around the edges of buildings where the terrain either sinks or raises so that the building can sit flat. Unfortunately it does this over such a small area around the edge that you end up with these bloody mountains around the edge of any asset that's sitting on a hill, and the map I started on is just one relatively shallow slope. It's not easy to see this when you're actually building, so creating a new housing estate for example often involves building it, realising it's terrible looking, deleting the whole thing and then flattening the terrain, and hoping that you've enough space around it to smooth the height changes on all sides before trying again. Just look at what it does when you don't:



(sorry for the overly bright screenshot, Windows doesn't do well with HDR)

And what's almost worse is that the buildings are flat, but it doesn't change the terrain height for the parking areas outside of them, so they have ridiculous looking gradients in them.

And then there's the frustrating road and path tools. Everything wants to snap to everything else, and warp space and time to do it. The game does let you turn snapping off, and there are a lot of options to adjust it to suit what you're trying to do, but it's still borderline impossible to build, say, a raised footbridge with ramps that descend to the street, as you'd get in some large towns and cities, as when it thinks there ought to be a connecting point it'll visually bend entire sections of road to try and meet it, despite the tool telling you that the connection is invalid. And every single time you build a path that connects to a road, or create an intersection, it'll fill the area with zebra crossings, which, again you have full control over, but it's an annoyance to have to go and remove them every time.

And even when you do manage to make road connections that work, there are absolutely no assets that fit into odd little corners unless it's a 90 degree angle. Every single building is square or rectangular, and the only assets you can add to fill gaps are trees and bushes... which don't get planted fully grown. You have to wait for trees to grow, leaving every area you build looking unfinished. It really feels like it wants you to build nothing but North American grid systems.

I've never known a city builder to need *this* much effort to get anything approaching aesthetically pleasing.