[Det. Bullock]

Streets of Rage 2 (Mega Drive) is still awesome, in other news water is wet and should probably change my nickname to Captain Obvious.
I still can't manage to 1cc it on normal even with max starting lifes, it's always those not-Sabretooth bosses that get to me, at least with the boxer guys I can usually hold on to a weapon long enough to deal with them. Miraculously I managed to beat the wrestler without losing a life. I suspect either my cheap controller might have become unresponsive or I have completely lost the habit of double tap and attack, fortunately there should be some decent options now for decent Mega Drive controllers.

Assuming you're talking about Tomb Raider III (The First One), the first level is first, then you choose which of the next three to tackle in any order, and then the final level (If I recall correctly).

I didn't know that, though the way the first levels are designed I'm not sure if to continue at all. The game camera seems to be made to screw with the player even more than in the first two games and in general there seem to be a lot more cheap traps that's impossible to see coming.

[Colonol Dekker]

Jump, kick to head?
Used to work for me if memory serves.

[Det. Bullock]

Jump, kick to head?
Used to work for me if memory serves.

Only if you time it just right, half the time they start slashing before the kick connects. The occasional fireball helps but considering that tales some health away it's mostly for when it starts charging at me (and even then they are fast enough that they often dodge it anyway).
Though I should probably be more patient. I had similar issues with the jetpack guys once, now it's just a matter of chipping at them doing jump kicks.

[Colonol Dekker]

Timing just right is what the golden age of console is all about 🤔😉😂

[Det. Bullock]

Streets of Rage 4 (PC) bought on GOG obviously.
The game seems visibly balanced mainly for coop which means that starting at normal will be inevitably frustrating if you play alone, the bosses almost always have minions that in coop may make things a bit less confusing but in single just gang up on you especially if they are the most difficult types in the smaller boss arenas and even then most bosses will take out at least one life (and on Normal you get three lives per level).
I beat SoR2 on normal last week and it was a much much easier game even without considering its age, while SoR4 on Normal often plays more like Final Fight than SoR.
On Easy it’s more manageable but still a bit above normal difficulty in SoR2 and the japanese version of SoR3.
Of course the other possibility is that they balanced the game thinking of “hardcore gamers” which would be bull**** since SoR games stood out also because they were much more accessible and fair than the quarter munchers that usually got ported to consoles and it would be quite disappointing that the developers pulled a Monster Boy and decided to make a sequel more difficult of the originals because it has to be more retro than retro.

Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown (PC)
I got the speedrun medal and now I'm working on the no damage run medal, obviously on easy.
I still have to get the frequent flyer achievement, I think the developers might have overdid the requirements a bit with that one or probably assumed people would mostly play single player to get the points to unlock stuff instead jumping into multiplayer as I did.

[theperfectdrugsk]

Haven't played anything in ages.

Been modding HBS Battletech a fair bit though.

[SL1]

Started Dragon Age Origins for the first time a few hours ago.

The dialogue trees seem very badly designed. It's not at all obvious which dialogue choices will advance the story and which are optional choices to get more information. There have also been several cases where every choice advances the story, even though several of them look like optional choices and should have been optional choices. And this was just for the first hour or so, for the mage trial in the Fade. This is seriously triggering my RPG dialogue OCD. It's especially painful because I'm playing this right after Enderal, because as much as I didn't care for how Enderal's story ultimately turned out, it gave clear indications of which options would advance the conversation, which I greatly appreciated. DAO feels like a total mess in comparison. How did Bioware do this after they got it right in Mass Effect, where the dialogue wheel clearly indicated which choices were plot-critical? I hope it gets better.

[theperfectdrugsk]

Huh. I don't remember the dialogue being all that wonky, but it's been forever since I played it. Maybe there's a dialogue fix mod out there?

[SL1]

Huh. I don't remember the dialogue being all that wonky, but it's been forever since I played it. Maybe there's a dialogue fix mod out there?

It's probably just me being OCD. Whenever I play an RPG, I'm always completely paranoid about missing things, especially things involving story and dialogue. So the thought that I might have missed an interesting line by clicking on the "wrong" dialogue option stresses me out. It's probably fine for people who aren't insane like me.

[0rph3u5]

Well, DA:O was concieved to please a crowd that was used to the whole "laundry list of dialogue options" from the old Infinity-engine games, original Fallout etc - including the absence of explicit "stage directions". By comparison, Mass Effect was primarily concieved for console hence the dialogue wheel and all its stream lining. (and its not like the explicit "mood icons" or "just the tone" dialogue trees are exactly better - e.g. worst case Fallout 4)

There is a convention to the number dialogues in old cRPGs - the first 1-3 from the top options progress things, the middle options tend to be "tell me more" and the 1-3 options from the bottom then to be "quick exit from conversation" options.

[SL1]

Well, DA:O was concieved to please a crowd that was used to the whole "laundry list of dialogue options" from the old Infinity-engine games, original Fallout etc - including the absence of explicit "stage directions". By comparison, Mass Effect was primarily concieved for console hence the dialogue wheel and all its stream lining. (and its not like the explicit "mood icons" or "just the tone" dialogue trees are exactly better - e.g. worst case Fallout 4)

Don't get me wrong, I love having lots of dialogue options. But I don't think there's anything wrong with making it clear which ones are mutually exclusive and which ones are investigation/"tell me more" options.

There is a convention to the number dialogues in old cRPGs - the first 1-3 from the top options progress things, the middle options tend to be "tell me more" and the 1-3 options from the bottom then to be "quick exit from conversation" options.

DAO doesn't seem to be following that convention, though, from what I've seen. I'll keep it in mind, though, and see if it applies to future dialogues.

[SL1]

Okay, let me give an example of what I'm talking about. I decided to go to the mage tower once the world map opened up. I'm still at the start of it, and here's a conversation I was just in. Slight spoilers, obviously:

https://imgur.com/a/5UgtBSD

I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to ask all four of those questions, but I can't. Once I pick one, the conversation returns to the start of the tree and the branch that brought me to the point in the screenshot is closed off. If I want to see where the other three questions lead, I have to reload my save and do the whole thing over again. I've encountered quite a few cases of this.

[Mongoose]

Terraria just dropped its final massive new content update, Journey's End.

See you all in six months!

[deathspeed]

So much to play all of a sudden!  i'm still enjoying AC7, then MechWarrior 5 showed up on PC Xbox GamePass, then Epic gave me GTA V.  I have not even started hitting my Steam backlog yet. 

[manwiththemachinegun]

Have you made it to Hunt For Red Octo, I mean the Alicorn DLC yet?

[deathspeed]

Not yet.  I have all the DLC but I'm only on mission 12 and want to finish the campaign before the DLC missions.

[Scourge of Ages]

Some friends asked if I wanted to play Ark Survival Evolved, so I started. Then I offered to host a dedicated server.
Then I lost 99 hours to The Island. But I do have a pile of Argentavises and a hungry Deodon to show for it. I also built a wooden frigate. So no regrets.

[0rph3u5]

Plans to get back in Witcher 3 somehow fell by the wayside .... but in the meantime, I tried my hand at other things:

- Moonlighter
Moonligher is not the first in the "fantasy RPG utility simulation"-genre mashups but it might be one of the most accessible. It is a very light rouge-lite (i.e. when you are reduced to 0 hp a day passes and everything you collected in the current run, except 5 "on your person"-slots, is lost) which borrows quite a bit from the 2D Zelda playbook, but it more a dedicated dungeon crawler than a genuine 2D Zelda-clone. You are actually dungeon crawling to uncover the mystery of 4 dungeons near your town and to fund the mystery hunt (and the related revitalisation of the local ecconomy) you run a shop selling your loot to the travellers and other adventureres.
Its actually a very nice diversion and as rather calming flow for the rogue-lite. Your mileage may very on how much you need a dungeon crawl every now and again.

- Gears Tactics
This game is the case why I should stop listening to my brothers for game recommendations - a bit of context here: my older brother has for years attempted to make Gears of War couch-coop a thing when I come to visit, but I never quite could engage with the franchise - dunno, maybe its the "blood for oil but with mole people"-thing it has going or something else. But I took the advice that a change in genre might do it for me - I mean, I "preach the gospel of the isometeric view" quite often.
It wants to be an XCom-clone with gameplay integration of Gear of War-staples such has violent dismemberment, enemy subterrainian assaults and monster bosses - and it can't quite come together to any effect for me; starting for the fact that the Gears of War-aestethic doesn't have all the eye catching detail (i.e. it is very detailed but in all shades of grey, brown and olive paint) that translates well to an isometric view, and hitting rather hard that Gears of War-enemy roster also doesn't boast that much variety.

- Assassin Creeed: Odyssey
This kinda started as a joke following the AC: Valhalla annoucement in a conversation about when I lend my (limited) expertise on factual Viking history to what could be turned into "AC-mechanics"; and I was hooked after 3 houres -- after all, "I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life"
If you are looking for AC: Black Flag 2.0 and don't mind massive step back into a time before firearms and cannons, this might be what you want.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Saw this update for a Doom mod the other day; been playing it since.

[Det. Bullock]

Finished Crysis 2: Maximum Edition (PC)
In the last two levels I just decided to cloak and rush to the objectives whenever the game let me.
I don't get why I do more damage by using my gun like a club than actually shooting it, wasn't this supposed to be a shooter?

Grand Theft Auto V (PC)
I had to use a third party tool to switch the language to english even though I have both Epic and the Rockstar Launcher set to english because the game locks itself onto the OS language, why in the name of sanity couldn't they have an option in the menu? Or just a frigging ini file to edit? I had to use a third party tool, unbelieveable!
And this without mentioning the need to register to the Rockstar Social Club like I care about GTA online with more captchas than some online banking services.
The game itself is not that different from GTA IV and that is not good in my book.
For example why in the name of sanity my character falls down when I sprint into things? This is basically early 3D game bull****.
Also the tutorial for entering cover is so short I missed it and had to alt-tab to look up the key because otherwise the tightly scripted first mission wouldn't let me go on.
For now the only takeaway I got from the story is that Dan Houser has seen Fargo let's see if at least gets interesting.