Played any new games recently?

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Since news pertaining to Red Dwarf is more or less absent atm, and inspired by a nice little off-topic discussion of other things on another discussion.

Anybody play any new games as of late? Any games you plan on getting?

Topic

[Taiwan Tony]

I played Connect Four with my daughters today. Probably Hide & Seek tomorrow.
Might get Jenga.

[bloodteller]

What a heartwarming post

[Hamish]

New games you say? No, certainly nothing that counts as new…

[GlenTokyo]

Looking forward to Spider-Man PS4 and Red Dead Redemption 2.

[Flap Jack]

I’ve been playing Yakuza 6. I’ve been going through the whole series in chronological order since Yakuza 0 came out last year, and it’s been quite the ride.

It’s a great time if you like being a fighting dad who is bad at committing to being a criminal but good at getting into shenanigans.

Though some of the mechanical changes made between Y5 and Y6 have been a bit tough to get the hang of.

[flanl3]

Been playing a lot of Splatoon 2. I also had a Ticket to Ride tournament with my family and some of our friends this weekend where we tried out my new United Kingdom/Pennsylvania board.

[Ridley]

Been playing Sniper Elite V2 on and off.

[Flap Jack]

Sniper Elite V2 came out in 2012, which is perhaps stretching the definition of “new” a bit.

Now, I’m sure you’re thinking “You? You’re trying to keep a thread 100% on topic? Didn’t you just yesterday post a lengthy defence of Star Wars: The Force Awakens in a G&T forum thread entitled “Would you watch a Red Dwarf ‘reboot’ with an all-female cast?” Doesn’t that make you a major hypocrite?”.

The answers are: yes, yes I am, yes I did, and yes it does. Thank you for asking.

[curtis]

Mario Tennis Aces, Mario Tennis Aces, Mario Tennis Aces and Mario Tennis Aces.

If anyone on here is playing Mario Tennis Aces, add me to your friend list and we will play it ALL of the time.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

I’ve seen reviews and trailers for We Happy Few, I’m interested but I bought the game when it was in still in-production back in 2016 and it ran like absolute dogshit so I refunded it. I haven’t heard good things since about its performance.

[Lily]

I play the crap out of Wurm Unlimited, but there’s nothing new about that.

[Ben Saunders]

The newest game I’ve even played is probably Fortnite, and before that it would probably be Rocket League.

I mostly play Doom 2, and I played Spyro the Dragon last night

[bloodteller]

I’ve been playing Persona 4 on the PS2 lately, but I have to keep taking breaks because whenever the console is on for a while the fan makes a lot of noise and it gets rather hot, so I’m paranoid that it might explode and I’ll lose all my save data

I suppose there’s nothing new about that (there are PS4s these days, so I am quite behind on games) but that’s basically all I have been playing so I don’t have anyting else to write about

[Hamish]

> Sniper Elite V2 came out in 2012, which is perhaps stretching the definition of “new” a bit.

Pish on your 2012. I am playing a game from 2007 right now as well as being right in the middle of a game that came out all the way back in 2000 (a more modern Enhanced Edition of same admittedly).

Saunders has me beat with Doom 2 though. I am also watching an Ultimate Doom LP right now; does that count?

[Hamish]

> so I’m paranoid that it might explode and I’ll lose all my save data

I like how “losing all [your] save data” is presented as the worst possible outcome here.

[bloodteller]

>I like how “losing all [your] save data” is presented as the worst possible outcome here.

Are there worse outcomes? You can buy a new PS2, but you certainly can’t buy back your save data

[Bargain Bin Holly]

but I have to keep taking breaks because whenever the console is on for a while the fan makes a lot of noise and it gets rather hot, so I’m paranoid that it might explode

You know I’m the exact same way with these two games I’m playing right now, Mafia and The Movies, both I had to buy on disc cause Steam doesn’t (or in Mafia’s case no longer) have them.

So when I’m playing them I worry the disc is going to get worse each playthrough. Maybe somewhere like GOG or Origin has them in-stock but I haven’t looked yet.

[Bargain Bin Holly]

Also I got GTA Vice City Stories two years back for the PS2, I don’t know what it was but it ran at something like 1fps and I couldn’t stand it.

Wanna hear me rant, just hear me complain why Rockstar can’t port most of their games to PC (GTA LCS, GTA VCS, Red Dead Redemption) and some of the ones they do are complete crap ports (LA Noire, tho I think this was Team Bondi but I think they went bankrupt before the PC port right?)

[Dave]

The new God of War is pretty impressive, although I’m only a few hours into it so far. The visuals are amazing, the new take on the character works very well, and the mechanics of the axe-throwing (chucking it and calling it back like Thor’s hammer) function brilliantly, it’s very satisfying. The story is solid so far too.

The switch to an over-the-shoulder third-person view and a slightly more open-world layout does make it feel a bit samey with other recent games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Uncharted 4, but that’s an issue with this entire gaming generation really – I don’t know whether it’s to do with lots of the big games using the same underlying game engines.

It’s quite hard too, when it comes to the combat. Or maybe I’m just starting to get crap at games.

I’m also playing Sonic Mania again after the Sonic Mania Plus update and really enjoying it all over again. Mighty and Ray are fun characters with decent new abilities, and Encore mode is an enjoyable remix of the game.

[Dave]

Looking forward to Spider-Man PS4 and Red Dead Redemption 2.

Yes, this. God knows when I’m going to find the time to play them though.

[clem]

> Are there worse outcomes? You can buy a new PS2, but you certainly can’t buy back your save data

I think Hamish meant that if your console literally exploded you could end up with bits of it embedded in you.

[Warbodog]

Started a Druid on Diablo II at the weekend, but no time to play since. That’s as new as I get (2001), otherwise it’s the Amiga emulator.

[Ben Saunders]

Persona 4 is excellent. The writing in that game really makes you feel for the characters, and you genuinely miss them when the experience is over. What a ride. Rise is best girl.

I’ll give you the Ultimate Doom LP/

[bloodteller]

>Persona 4 is excellent. The writing in that game really makes you feel for the characters, and you genuinely miss them when the experience is over. What a ride. Rise is best girl.

I think it’s fair to say every girl was best girl in Persona 4, they were all so likeable. But yeah, absolutely brilliant game, definitely one of my favourites of all time. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played through it

[Hamish]

> I think Hamish meant that if your console literally exploded you could end up with bits of it embedded in you.

Either that or burn your entire house down, you know, small things like that.

Regarding buying a new console though, I have to say that finding a PS2 for sale in my neck of the woods is actually no small task. You can find original Xboxes or PS1s all the time at thrift stores, but I have yet to see a PS2 at any price. Strange for the best selling console of all time. Especially since I was able to finds VHS tapes of both Smeg Ups and Dark Ages from those same thrift stores, which for the latter at least was just bizarre.

Since the taboo on talking about old games seems to have been lifted, the two ones I am going through right now incidentally are the original BioShock, which I am playing for the first time now that there is a DRM free release from Humble Store that works well with Wine, and Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition that I have been slowly bashing through since the middle of April.

Playing a classic CRPG worked well back when I was calving and was mostly needing to kill the long hours between brief periods of danger and excitement, but I just stopped having the time for it once the weather improved and the honey harvest starting to come in. I have mostly completed Shadows of Amn though, after going through both the first Baldur’s Gate and Siege of Dragonspear earlier in the year.

Oh, and if watching LPs does indeed count, I went through an Ultima 1 LP from the same YouTuber before I started watching Ultimate Doom. Which I guess beats even Warbodog’s Amiga emulator there.

[Hamish]

> Maybe somewhere like GOG or Origin has them in-stock but I haven’t looked yet.

GOG.com does have the Mafia games at the very least:
https://www.gog.com/game/mafia

[Flap Jack]

I’ve had that same problem with my PS2 becoming super noisy too, but weirdly it only happens for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. No other games.

[NoFro]

Will be picking up Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Spider-Man next month. Tend to do quite a bit of gaming in the winter months. Have a long weekend booked when RDR2 comes out. Was planning a long weekend for October anyway, then I thought I may as well pick the one where a massive open world game comes out.

[Ben Paddon]

Nopw I have a USB adapter for my Amiga joystick, I suspect I’ll be playing a lot more Amiga games.

[Ridley]

rawg.io is currently advertising on Letterboxd as gaming Letterboxd if that’s of any use to anyone.

Might give me the boost I need to finish games if I list all my ‘abandoned’ ones.

Now I just need TV and comics Letterboxds.

[bloodteller]

Bought Capcom Classics Collection for PS2 recently, so I could play all kinds of classic Capcom games. I now finally actually get all the Street Fighter II references from the Idea For An Episode thread. Weird how Street Fighter II is one of the most famous fighting games of all time, I’d known about it for years, and yet only just played it recently (I was Guile throughout the whole game). This means I can also finally watch the Street Fighter movie, which I’d been putting off until I played the game

Also, Ghosts N’ Goblins is fucking difficult. I’m nowhere even near beating that yet. Capcom games seem to be quite challenging, which I’m really liking because it’s more rewarding when/if you win

[Dave]

Spider-Man is bloody good. But you probably knew that by now.

[Dave]

I also picked up some retro compilations this year on the PS4 – the Megadrive collection and the Street Fighter anniversary collection. Both are good, but we’ve got a lot more play value out of the Mega Drive collection. (Ristar is one of the great underrated games of the era.)

[Warbodog]

Ristar was great. We only had a few non-Sonic games for the MegaDrive, so that got a lot of play. I used to find the underwater bits so tranquil.

Earthworm Jim also great. Back to the Future Part III appalling.

[Ben Saunders]

Currently trying to figure out how to host Worms Armageddon games for my friends after we played Worms Revolution (2012) a few times and decided the old ones are better. You either need to do some mad port forwarding shit with your router or use a set of !commands, both are really tedious. But I’ll get there

[Dave]

Ristar was great. We only had a few non-Sonic games for the MegaDrive, so that got a lot of play. I used to find the underwater bits so tranquil.

Earthworm Jim also great.

Yeah, it was the era of the great platformer.

The underwater bits are particularly nice in Ristar – the sound design is lovely for that whole second world.

[Moonlight]

Worms Armageddon was the best one. They can never get the physics right in the 3D games, Even the new 2D one just didn’t feel right.

Armageddon has this delicious sense of physics. Falls really hurt. When you exploded a worm and he flew way up above the screen, there was this wonderful moment as you waited for him to fall back down and die. The physics were fantastic and they just aren’t recapturing that magic with the newer games.

Also Sonic Mania is possibly my favorite video game ever.

[bloodteller]

>Earthworm Jim also great.

Earthworm Jim is amazing, but Earthworm Jim 2 wasn’t so good, and the one they released on Gameboy Color was just apalling. Never played Earthworm Jim 3-D, but apparently that one is rubbish too. With most platformers (Mario, Sonic, James Pond etc.) there’s usually an even better sequel, but Earthworm Jim just sort of spirals downwards immediately after the first game

The cartoon series was good though

[unclerubbish]

I have mostly been playing the Super Metroid/A Link to the past randomizer recently, along with Lego Dimensions with my daughter and I started a game of MGS 4 too after picking up a cheap Ps3.

[Ben Saunders]

Some of the physics stuff is pretty neat in Worms Revolution, especially stuff with water-based weapons. But i swear you take fall damage from pathetic heights and the ninja rope has been seriously nerfed.

I really liked Worms 4: Mayhem, i thought the truly 3D ones were pretty great, with Forts being at least an interesting switch-up to the gameplay. Then there was “Worms” on the Xbox Arcade which was a classic 2D throwback and brilliant too, very tough and rewarding challenges, but nobody plays 360 anymore so it died a death. Open Warfare 2 on PSP was pretty great as well and had online multiplayer.

Revolution is pretty disappointing all things considered, so we’re going to get Armageddon up and running tonight.

In Worms 4: Mayhem you could fly up into the sky with a jetpack and then, as you were falling, equip a parachute in mid-air and cover enormous distances. I tried that one in Revolution, it didn’t work and I fell into the water and died. Then I tried it again just to make sure, and died again. Could you ever do that in a 2D game?

[Dave]

Earthworm Jim is amazing, but Earthworm Jim 2 wasn’t so good

I actually quite liked EJ2, for the way it was more experimental with its levels and tried to push into different gameplay styles. It would have been easy for them to just rehash the first game so I was pleased they didn’t do that.

I remember being really impressed with the animation in the second game too – I wish the 2D platform genre had persisted a bit more into the modern generation as you could do some amazingly slick things now in terms of making games look like a living cartoon. But it doesn’t feel like many people are doing stuff like that – Rayman springs to mind but not much else.

[bloodteller]

> I actually quite liked EJ2, for the way it was more experimental with its levels and tried to push into different gameplay styles. It would have been easy for them to just rehash the first game so I was pleased they didn’t do that.

True, but most of the new level types I just didn’t find fun-the isometric shooter one where you have to push the balloon (or was it a bomb?) through the entire level just felt tedious, and the level where your head is inflated and you have to float up to the top felt quite irritating. The final level also felt pretty lifeless-it’s nothing more than a footrace, which maybe would have been good earlier on in the game, but for the last level it feels too low-key.

That said, there were some good levels in it-the one where you’re suddenly a blind cave salamander is good, and the quiz show part of it was really funny. The one where everything is made of food was good too, I thought. Overall though, the game felt like it focused too hard on trying to be wacky and creative and forgot to actually make it fun to play

[GlenTokyo]

I also echo that Spider-Man is amazing. The first time I’ve enjoyed a game story and gameplay as much for ages. Tomb Raider I didn’t like. It’s a glitchy mess to be honest, some hilarious character face/speech matchups. I’m particularly annoyed at how they gave it a by from the reviews I’ve seen but destroyed Mass Effect for the same sort of issues, probably because it’s not made by big evil EA.

Anyway, eagerly anticipating Red Dead and playing Spectrum games in the meantime.

[Ridley]

Finished most of Assassin’s Creed Origins recently. Was trying to complete it before Odyssey came out but the second DLC turned out to be bigger than first appeared so I’m bitter at Ubisoft for giving me more value for my money.

[Hamish]

Well, I finally found a PS2 while thrifting. It did not come with any cables or controllers, but the unit itself works fine.

…and I am still working through Baldur’s Gate II and BioShock. Yeah, I am slow.

[Dave]

I got Red Dead Redemption 2 on Friday, and it took most of that evening to install it, so I didn’t play it (and I haven’t had a chance to play it tonight either). But I’m looking forward to getting stuck into it.

[Author]

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