Topic: What (Non-PS4) game are you playing??

@Ralizah Yeah, you’re actually right - they seem to be waking up from their hibernation a little bit and I hear the retro anniversary collections are well done for Castlevania and TMNT. The Castlevania anime was also a big hit. eFootball is apparently getting better and like you say the Silent Hill revival has finally arrived. It does make me wonder if MGS will resurrect also. They really fell flat on their face with MG Survive.

@Th3solution I completely forgot about the Ninja Turtles collection, but you're right, that was another high-quality offering.

I do somewhat wonder if their resistance to re-releasing guaranteed best-sellers like the older MGS games is down to continued bad blood between them and Kojima. Wouldn't surprise me if some level of personal pettiness is at work. Corpos are just as human as we are, after all. And remember, this is the same company that went out of its way to memory hole PT by completely removing access to it on PSN for everyone.

I really should replay MGS2 now that people mention it. I’d find it hard to choose between that and the first MGS for my favourite in the series.

@Th3solution It’s funny you say the older gen graphics because at the time the game was incredible from that point of view.

The opening sequence as Snake jumped onto the tanker was incredible at the time and then so much of that opening section was also unlike anything before with that battle with Olga where you can shoot the lights out etc feeling proper next gen at the time.

@Thrillho It’s amazing how we get spoiled and used to current tech. The game is on par with many games today with regards to its complexity and much of the gameplay, and the HD remaster graphics looks decent enough with the industrial portions — it’s just the human facial expressions and animations that are strikingly different. I don’t remember being put off by the graphics back on PS2, but now I have to prep myself to ignore the antiquated character interactions. 😅

This probably doesn't exactly fit here, but it's the best place I can think of.

Some screenshots from my Steam year in review infographic.

August - September were clearly my XC3 months as I didn't touch my laptop then (ignore the translucent bar on Sept, it's only there because my finger was touching the screen there).

My games this year: platformers, anime boobs, and a few indies (surprised Final Fantasy Type 0 made my top 5 played games given I dropped it I assume pretty early on. Just goes to show how quickly most platformers can be cleared, and indies tend to be short).

A graph of my gaming interests apparently, which I find highly suspect, lol.

I have no idea how "cats" is so high up given that Stray was only my 7th most played game & I can't possibly think of what else is contributing to the statistic. I think Lollipop! has a few catgirl scenarios (exceedingly NSFW game, look up at your own peril), but again it's such a short game it can't contribute much.

I'm confused at the "LGBT+" statistic as well. I can only assume the ecchi trio (Gun Gun Pixies, Senran Kagura, Samurai Maiden) are being counted as they feature yuri elements at various levels, even though they probably wouldn't generally be counted as particularly "progressive" titles (clearly intended for the "male gaze" & all that, not that I have a problem with that, lol).

Started playing the first Project Gotham Racing on the original Xbox today. I've been wanting to start up another racing game after Grid and thought it'd be fun to try out the PGR series for the first time.

At first I really liked the game. Then I hated it. Then I liked it again and I'm thinking about continuing playing it. It's fun but can be a tad bit frustrating at times.

The thing that makes this series different from other racing games is that it's not just about racing, it's about racing with style. You gain so called "kudos" for drifting, passing other racers, being in the air and so on. In order to pass a race, you'll need to not only achieve the main objective but also gain enough kudos. This can be frustrating sometimes and I didn't even realise this aspect until an hour into the career mode. A lot of the times you'll gain enough kudos automatically without needing to put in any effort. But there will be a few races where it can be fairly demanding to progress because you'll need to actively gain kudos.

It's certainly a different approach to standard racing games and I like that. Normally I'd just tune out while playing racing titles as you only need to focus on completing laps but now I have to pay attention to what I'm doing as well. It's overall a fun experience and I'm looking forward to playing more of it.

@RR529 Apparenly 93% of what I played this year on Steam was Europa Universalis IV. Seems about right!

@RogerRoger I thought I had Ac!d but maybe I had the sequel as I remember having the cardboard Solid Eye attachment

@LN78 Pretty much. It would (obviously) alter the display to give you rudimentary 3D graphics but it mostly just gave me a migraine from what I remember!

For some reason I can't seem to stop playing Marvel Snap. It is not usually my type of game, there is hardly anything to it and I don't remember the last time I played a mobile game. I'm a bit baffled by it in all honesty. 😆

@RogerRoger Its so cool that you have started playing Metal Gear again. Like as I said in another thread its such a good game series. I feel like its a game I wish more people have had a chance play. I feel like the games message is so interesting and one that I think many non gamer would have find interesting as well. Its almost a scary how relevant the games feels in today world.. Kojima deserve so much credit for his work.

Started playing the first Forza Motorsport on the original Xbox today. I'm so glad this game is good. After starting up two racing games, Project Gotham Racing 1 and Project Cars 1, and not enjoying them at all, I was starting to think that I didn't have any good racing games left lol. But FM1 is seriously really good, even though it's the first game in the series. The controls feel great, the CPU opponents aren't too challenging, the game is very user-friendly and the progression system is great. You receive a free car after completing an event (an event consists of multiple races), which enables you to access events for other regions (e.g. you'll receive a Japanese car so you'll be able to participate in the Asian events). You also get free cars after reaching a certain level. In other words, there's a steady inflow of cars so you don't need to worry about not being able to afford certain cars. With the money you earn, you can upgrade the cars to make the races easier. It's overall a great system for novice racing players like me who just want to put on a podcast in the background and enjoy some casual driving.

I've also been playing One Piece Odyssey on Series X and I'm currently 4 hours in. It's a good game but I wish the PushSquare review had emphasised how easy the game is. You level up so quickly and the kinds of battles don't really change. It could change when I get to a new area, but so far I'm not really feeling any challenge at all from this game.

I also feel kinda dumb after something that happened yesterday in the game. So I was moving my camera and noticed that it locks up sometimes. I would have this issue with my 360 controller in every game as dust would gather in the right control stick, so I thought the same thing has happened now with my Series X controller, even though I've only had it for around half a year. I tried cleaning it, I tried updating the controller, I even tried to shut down the console, pull out the power cord, putting it back in and resyncing the controller. Nothing would work. Then I realised that the camera would lock up whenever I was moving my character. So apparently, you can't move the camera that much while you're moving with your character. If you stand completely still, the camera would move without any issue at all. So I basically wasted all that time thinking my controller was broken when it was a problem with the game itself. I even tried to play other games on Series X and the camera works fine in those games. For some reason, the camera is pretty bad in One Piece Odyssey. But I'm at least glad that I figured that out lol.

Well after much contemplating, I finally decided to start up Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story on the 3DS. So far it's pretty fun! I have to admit, I think it was the right call introducing the player to the Bowser gameplay right from the start considering the gameplay could get rather repetitive after a while in the previous games. So I think the more I play as Mario and Luigi, the more I'll appreciate the Bowser segments. It does seem a bit weird though if you're going to always play as Mario and Luigi while they're inside Bowser. I hope they at least get to come out and explore some areas themselves instead of only having Bowser do that.

Either way, I'm having a blast with this game. Really missed playing this series.

One Piece Odyssey (PS5) - Recently started the first memory world (Alabasta) and it's pretty decent so far. Has a clean, Dragon Quest like vibe (though I'll say Oda's designs can be a bit more quirky than Toriyama's) with an easy to grasp turn based battle system.

Ryse: Son of Rome (Steam) - I was recently reminded that this existed, and being one of the few Xbox One launch games that seemed interesting at the time I decided to check it out. Think I'm a little over half way through it & it's been solid so far. Definitely worth the $10, and it wasn't even on sale.

Played Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story for around 5 hours now and it's an absolute blast. I'm actually quite surprised at how much you get to play as Bowser. It almost feels like Bowser's own game! I don't believe Nintendo has ever made a Bowser game, so this feels like the closest thing we'll get to something like that and it's really cool. I'm very impressed so far and I'm loving the gameplay variety of playing as Bowser and Mario & Luigi respectively. So much fun!

Can’t bring myself to play any more Tomb Raider 4. While the more open levels are certainly impressive for 1999, they’re more a frustration than anything. Having to backtrack across several levels when the movement is so cumbersome and there’s no map becomes a test of patience. I’ve been wandering between 3 different levels looking for what to do with an item I picked up and it’s doing my head in. I’d say I’m tempted to just move onto the next game but that’s a choice of either Chronicles or Angel of Darkness, which doesn’t exactly inspire me.

@nessisonett I actually really liked Chronicles.. it had its problems but I just remember getting really into it back when it released. Looking back, that and FF9 were both nice ways to round out that generation of games (for me).

Rage on PS3. Replay of a game I first played in 2012. It is open world but much smaller than Rage 2 and is simple without huge inventories and skills/perks to manage. Crafting never feels like a chore. The driving would be much better if the camera auto centering could be disabled. Combat with wing sticks is fun, easy, and unique

The game looks good and the frame rates are smooth and are suppose to be 60fps. Overall one of the best looking and performing games I have played on my slim PS3.

Rage can be streamed now on Plus. However beware of losing save files and or not being able to even make a save file. I called Sony support and was told problems like that get high priority. My suggestion is play a little and see if making a save, backup cloud save, and loading a save is possible.

@RogerRoger Yeah, I’m enjoying Chronicles a bit more given that if you’re wondering where to go then there are at least not as many paths to wander in. I did hear that the wheels totally fall off later in the game but Rome’s been a nice change of pace from going between the same three identical Egyptian environments!