What game are you playing?

[greg]

Yeah who is your waifu now?

For game characters, probably a three-way tie between Honoka and Nyotengu from Dead or Alive and Tifa from FF7R, nah... a three-way tie between those lovely witches.

The middle one must be Pyramid Head's wife, or sister.... or sister-wife? Or in drag?
Pyramid Head, didn't know you were so fine with facenet covering and stomach arm! 
Heeeeeeeeeheeeeeeeeeee (heavy panting noises)

[greg]

I envy people who can just give up easily and let things go, must be nice. How do you do that? No, really, that's a serious question, I need to learn how to.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was an enjoyable game, some parts in the beginning can be hard at first but not too bad once you get the hang of them.

I am currently near the end. There are two missions near the end I just finished which turned out to be the most miserable gaming experience I've ever had, and there are some bad ones. The game goes from moderate difficulty to extremely insane and unfair expectations. You have to perform at peak performance for 30-60 minutes straight AND hope the random stuff that you have no control over doesn't kill you.

What is even the point of playing a game if it's going to shatter your nerves and cause the most extreme rage you feel in your life? Why can't they just leave their game at moderate difficulty, instead of having an extreme difficulty spike right before you finish?

(One explanation I read is that the game was originally balanced around playing co-op, and if you play single player then stuff is going to take a really long time to complete, would explain everything tbh... but they lacked the foresight of balancing around the inevitable of people playing single player, years later, when there is no one online to play with)

If you research about the game's difficulty before playing, what you find will be misleading. Google the actual mission and boss names and you'll read people saying how awful they were designed.
Was considering one day playing the extra features after completing it, because the gameplay is quite enjoyable, but now I hate this game so much that I never will.

[greg]

On another note, did anyone hear about that story about porn involving Tifa from FF7 being played at an Italian Senate meeting? Someone hacked into their system and streamed a video, hilarious stuff.



Speaking of that....
FF7 part 2 was announced yesterday, "FF7 Rebirth."
There will be three parts:
Remake
Rebirth
?


Rebirth comes out winter next year, FF16 comes out summer next year.
(though i could see small delays happening)

I am very glad they decided on three parts, it's the perfect plan IMO, exactly what I've wanted since part 1.

[DavidW]

Rebirth comes out winter next year, FF16 comes out summer next year.

Well I know what I'm doing for most of 2023 then! (being repeatedly killed by Tonberry on two separate titles)

[greg]

Well I know what I'm doing for most of 2023 then! (being repeatedly killed by Tonberry on two separate titles)

[greg]

If anyone knows about the site howlongtobeat.com, you might want to not take it too seriously.

Example, MGS: Peace Walker is the worst offender yet for time estimations that I've seen. People voted as taking 18 hours on average to complete the main story. I've probably played 50 hours and am currently stuck at the last boss (Metal Gear Zeke). I will probably have to grind another day or two now, because this thing is one-shotting me 40 minutes in a fight, with no way to avoid it.

But sometimes the site works- Final Fantasy 7 Remake, averaged at 33 hours? That's about how long it took me, without any guide, so totally accurate.

I just don't know what to trust any more with researching time frames and what people say about difficulty. This is possibly the most difficult game I've ever played, up there with the Metroid games, yet I read online beforehand so I would know, and people say it's one of the easiest Metal Gear Solid games. Wtf!?

If I would have known it was this difficult and time consuming, I would have skipped it. But doing research confirming it's okay, and then not finding how out long and difficult it really is until like 30 hours into the game has seriously destroyed my week. I play games to relax, not to rage. And it wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have the compulsion to finish everything that I start, that's exactly why I research beforehand, to avoid that scenario, yet still I get to experience this wonderful problem.

[greg]

Ok, maybe dumb that I'm posting so much about this game, but just finished Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

To summarize what is wrong with that game: they didn't rebalance the boss HP to be reasonable, because the game was originally balanced around multiplayer and not really meant to be played solo. When boss fights are difficult enough to demand sustained perfection, they should be short. However, the bosses often take 30-40+ minutes to complete, rather than a typical 5-10 minutes. This ends up being extremely exhausting and not fun at all.

Now, I'm about to start Metal Gear Solid 4. The plan is to play all of the canon games in the series (MGS 1-5, Peace Walker, and Rising:Revengeance). (but will skip the old Metal Gear games for now)

Playing them from here:

[greg]

Anyone play the Devil May Cry series?

I'm really interested in playing the whole series, perhaps within the next year or so, but knowing that they are difficult games (1 and 3 moreso than the rest), I might have to change my strategize for playing in order to enjoy them without hating them. One thing that might help a lot is the fact that they are all quite short games, so taking breaks might be okay.

[greg]

There is a premade tierlist for ranking Final Fantasy games, so made one just now.
https://tiermaker.com/create/final-fantasy-main-series-5297

(though wish it included FF7R and Type 0)

[DavidW]

The 7 remake is not on the list, I guess it needs to be updated.  I consider the remake to be a completely separate game from the original, unlike say the 10 remaster.

[greg]

The 7 remake is not on the list, I guess it needs to be updated.  I consider the remake to be a completely separate game from the original, unlike say the 10 remaster.

Oh, it is indeed.
Though... kind of a new category. I've heard the term "re-quel" used.
I'm glad that it isn't just a remake of the original, all the new stuff they added is great IMO, expanding the world more is only a good thing. More is more!
(a big reason why 14 and 11 are in my top two is simply because of the expansive worlds that both have)

Btw, my guess on the name of part 3: Rewrite!

[drogulus]

     I shoot monsters. It's what I do. I play old school PC games like Quake 3 Arena, UT2003 and games in the Serious Sam franchise.

     

     Serious Sam has some of the stupidest comic monsters ever. You're doing them a favor to kill them.

     Recently I got the HD update for the earliest games in the series, the First/Second Encounter.

     

     That's pretty cool for a game released 20 years ago.

     

[greg]

I totally missed out on those games, but from that era, the original Half-Life and Postal 2 are my favorite FPS's.

[LKB]

Half-Life remains the only game which ever got a real scare outta me. That one map with those f***ing headcrabs in the air ducts...

[greg]

Metal Gear Solid 4
Feels like despite still keeping some of the goofiness of the series, the tone of this game is super super somber.
I liked the chameleon-like camouflage mechanic, and how you shake your controller to remove it, but seems like it was almost not even needed.
Satisfying in the sense that this is really the actual chronological ending of the MGS series.


Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
Although technically this is the last game in the series chronologically, feels more like an epilogue, story-wise.
This is the most action-y action game of all time. But the gameplay feels a bit repetitive and simplistic because of it.
It does look amazing, though, one of the best looking PS3 games of all time IMO.
Weird thing is how this game got some recent surge in popularity online, I ended up seeing bits of the final boss fight in videos unintentionally. It's been super meme-y lately, despite the game being like 7-8 years old.


As for Metal Gear Solid 5, bought it and will play eventually, but not sure when. Unlike the other games in the series, it's super long.


For now, I'd rank the MGS games like:
3 > 4 > 1 > 2 > PW


Chrono Cross
Playing the HD remake. Got a physical release for Switch from Play Asia.

[relm1]

Half-Life remains the only game which ever got a real scare outta me. That one map with those f***ing headcrabs in the air ducts...

That was a great, great game and very influential.  I never played the sequels though.

[LKB]

Seriously thinking of downloading RDR2 today...

[stingo]

Of late, BL2 and Presequel, W40K Inquisitor/Martyr, Divinity Original Sin. (PC)

[DavidW]

Seriously thinking of downloading RDR2 today...

Same.  I never got past the never ending prologue.  I need to give it a fair chance.

[Karl Henning]

One of my daily cognitive exercises since the stroke is sudoku, which I found (a bit to my surprise) that I enjoy. There's a "fast" game (6x6) and one thing I like to do is see how good a time I can manage. Sometimes none too low, but generally even my "worst" game is < 2'
I like to have a "week's best" under 50" ... so when I log a 41" game (as today) I'm mighty pleased with my neurons.