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[Praying Mantis]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Call of Pripyat. Novel concept at first and an ok time waster, but the game is so fucking bland it hurts. Flat and empty open world, with nothing interesting to find; no worthwhile loot, no interesting enemies to fight, no vehicles, no unique characters, nothing. The gun mechanics are cool (bullet drop, travel time, ricocheting bullets, etc) but because the enemies and AI are so unchallenging and uninteresting even on the highest difficulty, that the good mechanics are wasted. There is supposedly meant to be a stealth element (sight/sound metres, light/dark situations, silencers and sneaking) but they don't work at all. Artefacts are pointless for anything but making cash, and anomalies are only a nuisance. Missions are mostly boring. The writing is average and the voice acting is very bad. I dislike that there is a weight limit on what you can carry. The movement is sluggish and a pain to control.

I do however think the atmosphere is good, especially in the Jupiter plant and its surroundings. I wish I could say the same for the Pripyat area given how much the NPCs hype it up, but it's clear it was rushed out the door at the end of development making it the most empty area in the game. The music is great and sets the tone perfectly. The visual style is ok and once again helps create good atmosphere. I also liked how as an RPG, progression is tied to your equipment rather than your stats; it's like Borderlands without levelling.

Despite how little the game has going for it, I did enjoy parts of it and will be playing the other 2 games in the series. I just started with Shadow of Chernobyl, and it already plays a lot better than CoP.

[SirNiko]

DROD: The Second Sky really starts to shine towards the end of the game. After a significant number of levels, the game opens up, reveals a central hub and unlocks a large number of optional bonus levels. Some of the bonus levels, in turn, reward you with collectable items that can be used to unlock bizarre bonus worlds with strange mechanics and settings that lie outside the official story. You also regain free reign of the world map for backtracking, which is a relief because the early game has a lot of checkpoints where you lose access to older areas except through the use of the "Restore" feature (which despite its clumsiness does its job completely).

The storytelling is still trying to find a sweet spot after the excellent design of Journey to Rooted Hold. The game relies very heavily on cutscenes to advance the story, sometimes making you visit two or more locations in a row that have no puzzle rooms. The Critic in particular I like, since she appears in the middle of puzzles and offers her dialogue while you're solving it in the same fashion of Journey to Rooted Hold. I wish the developers would seize on that method of storytelling and expand on it, but I can understand how it might be difficult especially since the levels (which have "made on" dates) weren't made in chronological order.

The biggest complaint I have is still that a lot of parts of the game feel clumsy or hacked together. You have an inventory, but you don't discover it until you're many hours in the game and then it's a small room in a hub level. One level features optional nonogram puzzles for unlocking bonus levels (which I really like), but they're operated by walking around and waiting on tiles to mark them, which makes the relatively easy puzzles time intensive. The game features achievement-like challenges, but they're buried in the Restore feature. Clicking on them highlights them but otherwise doesn't seem to do anything, when it would be nice to get a piece of explanatory text or even a quick link to redo the relevant puzzle. It's a bunch of little things that make the game inconvenient in small ways but without making it unplayable in any sense of the word.

The late game, though, shines pretty brightly. It's got me so that I want to keep solving puzzles to see what I'll unlock next, which is exactly what I need given how difficult some of the late game puzzles are becoming. It's definitely a must-play if you've already played the other titles in the series. If you haven't played them, there's an excellent quality flash-based version of the original game to play instead.

[Fallsburg]

Gravity Ghost - 2D Super Mario Galaxy that is just delightful.

[s0]

Despite how little the game has going for it, I did enjoy parts of it and will be playing the other 2 games in the series. I just started with Shadow of Chernobyl, and it already plays a lot better than CoP.

SOC is far and away the best in the series. be sure to install the ZRP mod/fan patch when you play it tho.

[Jondog]

Still playing The Witcher and I'm up to chapter IV, enjoying the combat more even though I hate the timing. Discovered that if you stun an enemy and then attack them you'll perform and execution move and there's quite a few animations for it.

[vinheim3]

Currently downloading Metroid Prime trilogy off the eshop (haven't tried 1 and 2 for some reason) so about to play that

Right now though, I'm really getting into the new dlc for Hyrule Warriors. MUCH more fun than Twilight princess dlc if only for the competitive-focused stages and the map gimmicks, and easily more fun than the other maps. Can't wait to fully beat it

[s0]

(haven't tried 1 and 2 for some reason)

rectify this immediately pls

[Tanner]

Currently downloading Metroid Prime trilogy off the eshop (haven't tried 1 and 2 for some reason) so about to play that

oh jeez i wish i were you.

metroid prime is a serious contender for best game of that console generation in my opinion. i'd love to be able to play it again for the first time.

[ThemsAllTook]

Don't Starve Together is pretty great. It's interesting to see how the game balance changes with two (or more) mouths to feed. Still a little rough around the edges, but most of the game is there and quite playable.

[vinheim3]

rectify this immediately pls

oh jeez i wish i were you.

metroid prime is a serious contender for best game of that console generation in my opinion. i'd love to be able to play it again for the first time.

I think it was the idea of the whole genre change that turned me off, but Prime 3 was pretty neat, so I'm hype to be able to start it, especially since I see 1 and 2 being praised everywhere. If they're better than 3, then it'll be a hell of a week

[s0]

prime 3 is the worst prime game (excluding hunters) and also the least "metroid". the first one is a successful transition of a series from 2d to 3d on par with super mario 64 and ocarina of time as far as im concerned.

[s0]

i am NOT playing heroes of might & magic 3 HD. no expansions (wat a hell) but still more expensive than the complete GOG version. no random map generator either. the "graphics upgrade" is minimal at best and actually looks worse in some cases (town screens!). there are mods for the original that look better than this crap.

in short: ubisoft keeps delivering

[InfiniteStateMachine]

i am NOT playing heroes of might & magic 3 HD. no expansions (wat a hell) but still more expensive than the complete GOG version. no random map generator either. the "graphics upgrade" is minimal at best and actually looks worse in some cases (town screens!). there are mods for the original that look better than this crap.

in short: ubisoft keeps delivering

Awesome, I dont have to buy it a 3rd time. I'll just dosbox my old stuff.


That said, I could keep buying content for a very long time for that game. Too bad they never did that.

[baconman]

Fiddling around in Petit Computer, learning the intricacies of SmileBASIC and resetting my brain to super-old-school mode. Comes with some default assets to play around with, still learning to make that work. Just have to learn how to correlate the terms, then make each of the projects work and be fun within 9999 lines.

The upside here is, the "game about gaming" plays perfectly into the thing where one application can be used to launch another, because now I can make each game-generation its own project, then tie it together with what basically amounts to "a launcher;" and I may have to dummy back down my sprite system to 64-per-character again, which works perfectly within the groups that can be loaded, but that's just trimming fat that seemed like a good idea (like cutting the handstand/monkeybar animation and the crawl/climb/swim, perhaps).

The combo of internal assets is alright for prototyping/proofs of concept, at least.

[Terrytheplatypus]

recently, 2 by hubol, which is great, sluggish morss ad infinitum which is now free on gamejolt, english country tune,hyperrogue

[Boreal]

I've been playing Besiege for about 10 hours straight :|  At least I've already got my money's worth for a $7 early access game!

[saturdaymorning]

Had a sleepless night playing rymdkapsel the other day.

I picked up Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze after having not touched it since I first tried it a few months ago. The momentum based stuff just clicked this time around. The levels' look, feel, and flow are 2gud.

[bsp]

started Life Is Strange a couple nights ago and I'm enjoying it so far. the setting is excellent and cool writing

[Praying Mantis]

Had a sleepless night playing rymdkapsel the other day.

That game is pretty fun. However the biggest flaw is has is dumb AI and lack of micro-managing, so going for higher-levels and achievements is nearly impossible because of that.

[Impmaster]

I'm bored of constantly playing League of Legends and Hearthstone. Everyone suggest to me your favorite indie game of 2014. Preferably one that doesn't take too long to get into, and which looks fairly pretty.