What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

I bought DNF Duel, a very anime fighting game from the makers of Guilty Gear and other stuff. It has one button controls for the special moves, which I wanted to try since I don't have an arcade stick for my ps4. It also scales back the insane mobility that you typically see in these kind of fighting games, which is probably good for me since I haven't been into a fighting game seriously in like 15 years at this point.

It's fun! I'm also very bad at it I just have no feel for the cadence of the gameplay atm, but I guess that's to be expected after only playing for a few hours. It's interesting playing a game like this with smash style special moves, since it removes a lot of the execution barrier... But definitely not all of it. There's still a lot of serious timing and knowledge required here (as evidenced by my getting absolutely crushed online so far).

Played a good bit of Generation Zero this weekend. With the recent patch, it now feels less of a slog and way more fun when taking down big game mechs. Add to this, I was lucky and found SEVERAL 6 crown weapons. Let me say, this makes the game WAY LESS of a pain in the ass. I found an experimental .50 sniper rifle and hoo boy, that thing does not play around. You can take down a Tank with about 2-3 magazines, depending on the ammo type and development level of the mech. I also found an experimental AG4 that makes all rounds fire rounds and, my favorite... The Kpist SMG that has two settings-Overdrive and Automatic. Overdrive is the default setting and it sounds like a power drill when firing. The ROF is insane and can take down Hunters with a full mag or Runners with small bursts. Auto is a lower ROF and you'd only use that if you're running low on ammo, which is basically impossible since the game THROWS ammo at you in every possible way.

I also like taking out FNIX control point locations. Make some HEDP rounds, shell it until most of the structures are down, and then destroy the shield generators. All the while running like a madman and kiting the enemies. I really like CP base building, but I never thought that in 1989 Alternate Sweden THREAD is worth its weight in platinum. It's kinda hard to find and is necessary for building MG nests. Don't ask me how that logic works. I don't know, either.

Yesterday, before gallivanting off to Bay St. Louis to burst into flames on the beach, I bought Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock, which is a turn based, fleet based system. It's set in the 2003 series and uses the First Cylon War as the backdrop. It's a really good game and the look and feel of the 2003 series is felt. The best part was after I finished the tutorial, the computer asked if I wanted to see the replay. I said yes.

It's just like the fleet battles in the series, cinema vérité and all. I'm definitely going to play more tonight.

Been playing Tiny Tina's Wonderland. So this is a Borderlands spin-off, set in a game of "Bunkers and Badasses", a TTRPG within the Borderlands universe. It's ostensibly fantasy, except the character of Tiny Tina (a 13-year old explosives expert) is running it, so there are guns.

Mechanically it's very much a Borderlands palette swap. FPS, missions, guns, shields, grenades (are spells), and so forth. But there are some differences. There's a new gear slot for "rings" and another one I haven't unlocked yet. Melee attacks are much better than in the BL games. There's an overland map you move around in from place to place.

The humor is very typical of BL...sometimes great, sometimes awful. One of the chattery NPS who hangs around with you just doesn't work and every line lands with a thud. The other is not too bad. Apart from TT, no other BL characters yet.

My main gripe is that the bad guy is voiced by Will Arnett. He's fine, but his voice is everywhere these days, and it's always just Will Arnett's voice, so the villain speaks with the same voice as Reese's Cup ads. Also it's a little too close to Handsome Jack's voice without being it, so it's odd. (And let's face it, HJ is forever going to be a difficult villain to top.)

But I'm having a good time with it. It's a nice diversion, fun, I'm playing on easy combat mode, it's all good.

Stopped playing Generation: Zero due to game breaking bugs (e.g. infinite Tick spawning, leading to crashing of the game). Got back into playing Payday 2, and getting back into the groove.

Yesterday marked the 9th anniversary of the game! They now have an event running called "Piggy Bank". Essentially, you headshot LEOs, there's a chance they'll drop Piggy Bucks. You only have a limited time to pick them up before they blow up. Once you have the bucks, there's a golden little piggy sitting somewhere in the heist area with a zone of control. You toss the loot bag into the zone, and BAM! it's deposited. Once you fill the bank up 100%, it goes to Stage 2, all the way to Stage 5. Reason why you want to do this? Well, to unlock cosmetics of course (and you get an XP bonus depending on the stage of the piggy)! The easy ones were the suit and the gloves. I unlocked those last night.

The mask, however, was a different animal. The community had to collectively bag 3,000,000 Piggy Bucks into the bank; and you had to finish 4 different heists breaking the piggy bank, IIRC. Last night, that prerequisite was not done. This morning? DONE!

So, I picked a relatively easy heist and made myself a little late to work to get the Piggy to Stage 3. I broke the piggy and completed the heist. Mask is now mine!

I started Astroneer again, which is a good game. But it's really missing some sort of driving force. I contrast it with Terraria, which is another one of these sorts of mining and building minecraft style games, but Terraria has bosses you defeat and different criteria to meet. Astroneer has a little of this, but it's much, much less directed. It doesn't totally work for me.

I purchased Arcade Paradise, because of course I did... it's a business sim in which you manage a laundromat and add arcade machines to it to supplement income. Eventually the arcade will be the chief business.

You can play all of the machines, of which there are 35 or so. I have only played a couple, and can't really comment on quality other than to say they all seem like passable time wasters.

I want to use keyboard and mouse, but they made some odd choices with controls, so at this point I'd say gamepad is the way to go. I have only played the first day so I can't say if it's good or bad yet.

I'm like 5 hours into Cult of the Lamb, which is a combo cult/village management sim and roguelite action game ala Binding of Isaac. The action stuff isn't revolutionary so far but it's fun and fine, and the way it compliments the cult management stuff is really cool. I'm really enjoying it... The art is cute and the vibe is cute and creepy, as you sacrifice your cult members to off brand Satan or imprison them for being dissenters or whatever.

Dragging Rebel Galaxy Outlaw back out. This must be a homage to Privateer and Freespace, especially Privateer. If you played Privateer in the past, you're playing it again, with a different story. It's not particularly deep, or particularly large. But if you're in the mood for space mining or blowing up bad guys, it'll scratch that itch.

Anyone playing Rumbleverse? It’s a cartoony, free-to-play battle royale that is wrestling/melee-based. I’m still trying to learn how to chain attacks together and do better in combat, but I’m enjoying it.

My Epic Game Store ID is the same as here if anyone wants to duo sometime.

I’ve long held that certain video game patterns were thinly veiled applied psychology experiments. The most egregious (non-mobile/gacha) example I could think of was something like Diablo which is just a Skinner box that appeals to the same emotive parts of our brains that a slot machine does. I recently fired up Spider-Man on the PS5 and it’s remarkable how sophisticated the application of this model has been.

The pacing of dopamine hits are something to be studied. About every 5-10 minutes some new flash of light shows up on my map. About every 15-30 minutes some new set of tchotchkes is unlocked for me to collect. About every 1-5 minutes I’ll organically stumble upon one of these new collectibles as I make my way around Manhattan. Don’t forget to take a picture of the landmarks because they set the game in New York. You remember New York don’t you? We’re in New York.

Along the way they’ll make you feel like a scientist by giving you ridiculously easy pattern matching questions (in fairness the spectrometry questions are actually surprisingly similar to my lab experience) so you’ll be reassured that you also have the IQ of a genius. And what’s the point of all this? Why it’s to buy new stuff and unlock new stuff to buy, you’ve got to clear all of those notification jewels!

Travel does feel great as swinging around the city provides its own thrill but on reflection all I’m doing is holding R2, and alternating between mashing X or L2 while the game plays itself. While I’m doing that I’ll get texts and calls from friends and family to make sure I don’t get too bored and to keep the plot moving.

GTA may have pioneered the model, but on the way between missions you will invariably be sidetracked by something shiny because it’s “close enough” causing some meter to fill to make a light flash so you can press a button so you can see a cutscene.

Uncharted may have pioneered this model but during that cutscene there’ll be a QTE to make sure you’re paying attention but the tension is false because the input windows are insanely generous and even if you fail the consequences are minimal.

Combat itself actually presents some challenge at the default difficulty of “Amazing” but nothing really seems to matter as the combat system, pioneered by Arkham Asylum, feels sloppier than its originator. I press the buttons in time to generous timing windows while the character does cool shit and I just watch. Every now and again a meter fills and I get to watch another cutscene as Peter Parker does something while sornars gets to feel proud of how well he’s doing.

The worst part is this game is addictive. I’d go so far as to say it’s fun! I’m enjoying myself but when you step back you can’t help see the cynicism that lead to this series of gameplay decisions. The creators clearly love Spider-Man but I think they may hate the players. It’s a good game as far as modern game design goes but I think at the heart of it modern game design is truly rotten.

Despite burning out on Elden Ring (I think any single one of the other Souls games is far superior to that one; fight me) I can see why From Software games are so resonant with the gaming community; they’re a breath of fresh air compared to this. The difficulty of those game may feel like contempt of the players but they’re actually a sign of respect and the players and devs are in on the same joke. I feel like Spider-Man and most open world games don’t respect me as a player nor my time. Things just happen and I’m along for the aggressively paced experience.

PS. Elden Ring is too large and good pacing is why I enjoy the Souls series. The pacing is fucked in Elden Ring and it’s an inherent problem with open world games. The alternative of level scaling enemies also sucks.

I've definitely started to feel a real sense of unease whenever I'm consuming media that is excessively created using tight data metrics. That's most things these days but maybe it explains why I don't play a lot of triple A games or consume a lot of movies and TV. It's like a little voice in the back of your head that when you have a chance to sit and actually think ("thinking slow" in Kahnemen and Tversky's parlance) makes you realize you are on a very tuned, programmed ride with the *appearance* of creativity.

Good point Gary. The other day someone said to me that they were into “nerdy” things like the MCU and Star Wars. I didn’t say anything but I was thinking these are billion dollar franchises owned by Disney. They are as main stream as it gets.

Update on Arcade Paradise. I've now got 14 hours in, and my arcade is greatly expanded. I think I have 19 of the 35 machines so far. I basically don't do any laundry unless I particularly want to, and the game doesn't punish you for that.

I still think the controls are better with a gamepad, but I get by with keyboard and mouse.

There are secondary goals that give you a separate currency, used for upgrades that increase your time management skills, or remove busywork. Obtaining this secondary currency takes a while, and I think I have only purchased 2 upgrades in my 14 hours.

Most of the arcade games themselves are not terribly compelling, but there are a couple of them that are good enough to be games in their own right. Some of them also have a permanent upgrade system in place that goes against the general "arcade" attitude but it does help give them some substance.

I do think the arcade management aspects of the game are almost non-existent, and that part of it could be better. But overall, it's a fun way to spend an hour or so at a time.

Still playing Tiny Tina's Wonderlands but paused to start the new Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. I love the series, and it's fun. New characters are good, alternate versions of R&C without being clones.

That said, it's *very* cutsceney and it's also pretty clear a lot of emphasis was placed on aesthetics over gameplay. This is particularly true with the terrain: it's never clear what's "real" terrain and what's just window dressing. Controls are also kind of mushy and there are some level elements I'm *still* not completely certain I know how they work. Good mix of new weapons and old favorites. So far gadgets take a back seat, though you start with things like swingshot, grind boots, mag boots, and so forth, stuff you previously had to find.

Wanted to play Bigfoot this weekend, after seeing a bunch of my favorite Youtubers play. However, they made a hotfix that rendered my game unplayable due mouse pointer miscalibration. Until that gets fixed, I'll put it on the back burner. Generation Zero is in the same boat, as the Tick problem is unresolved.

In the meantime, I'm still playing Payday 2, the devs extended the 9th Anniversary celebration to the 24th, with stretch goals if the community gets $24mil Piggy Bucks deposited. Right now, it sits @ $17.5mil. I'm doing my part with that on easy heists where it's easier to grind the bucks.

Played and finished Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation. I'm still playing the game to unlock all the achievements, but I understand why the devs pulled the game from Steam. I believe it's the end of a licensing deal with WOTC, but mostly I don't think it sold well. Seeing that it's based on a boardgame, I'd rather play the boardgame than the video game. The devs did EVERYTHING WRONG with how character progression worked. In order to level your character, you have to find chests on the map, or as rewards for finishing a scenario, and use craft materials AND gold to create the next higher armaments and other accoutrements for the character up to Legendary level.

The problem? Gold is hard to come by and you end up with a plethora of craft materials that you CAN'T sell. So, you have to grind the same scenarios to get gold. Prior to delisting, the dev team offered DLC packs that you could buy all the materials necessary to bring a character to Legendary level. Sorry, I paid good money to buy the game, I'm not buying an overpriced shortcut. Needless to say, the reviews for the game reflected that cash grab. I'll never be able to get the druid character, but I'm okay with that.

The last game I'm hate playing to get the final three achievements is The Signal from Tolva, a game I had high hopes for, but was very disappointing for me. The two achievements are to get lost in mazes for 1/2 and an houw, which I plan to simply walk into a maze, and then go do something else for 45 minutes.

The last achievement is to use a command module to acquire 160 bots. I'm halfway there. Once, I get all the achievements, I'm going to uninstall and hide this game on account. Out of sight and out of mind.