whatchu playing now

tooie is quite a bit worse than the first game, they made the areas way bigger without having as interesting stuff to do in them so its just a lot of bland space iirc

conker is a bunch of bathroom humor with a side of 3d platforming

what consoles do you have? have you played psychonauts? that's the first thing that comes to mind.

jak & daxter and ratchet & clank both had solid first games on the ps2, havent touched these since i was a teen though so i could be wrong and i havent played any of the sequels

hat in time is similar to all these if you can get it running

i don't feel theres many good games in the genre from the n64/psx generation so if you can't emulate beyond that then idk

largely agree, can't wait for developer nostalgia of that era to peter out

oh A Short Hike is a great 3d platformer if you haven't plaeyd that

I'm so glad to hear that Conker and Tooie's "classic" status is not unanimous (I've never played either for more than twenty bored minutes)

i don't know who held those up as classic in the first place, all the rareware platformers after banjo 1 were mediocre to bad. i blame europeans

If you're just messing around with ROMs and don't have money invested, Conker's is a good twenty minutes imo. I like the visual style. I like the weird vibe.

Conker seems to have a reputation as one of the most difficult games to emulate (kinda like Shadow of the Colossus) bcz it pushed the hardware to the absolute limits

I actually just bought Psychonauts with the intention of replaying it, so maybe I will do that!

I also have a decent PS2 emu and I was actually considering a Jak or a Ratchet game! What’s the gist of each of them? I always conflate them bcz they’re both “Name & Name”. I presume I should start with the first and work my way thru?

I'd suggest the newer Ratchet and Clank games over the old ones... it's not like there's an evolving story that you're missing out on, and every other element is improved. If you aren't a mark for early CG graphics it's tough to see why you'd start there though. Maybe play the first one a bit to see how it gets started.

Borderlands 1/2/3 are co-op games to me... I can't imagine playing them solo. But if you do, mute the dialog and music and throw on a record. Absolutely dire attempts at comedy. The best writing for my money is in Telltale's "Tales of the Borderlands" but that's a completely different type of game.

I finally put Destiny 2 down again and have been trying some other stuff... Elden Ring, Final Fantasy XIV, Deathloop, Shredder's Revenge, Tunic, Vampire Survivors... also been watching streams of Neon White, which I find quite compelling.

oh yeah i thought the issue was that stevie doesn't have a recent console but if you've got a ps4 or 5 theres loads more options

or recent graphics card though those particular games are not on pc afaik

Oh, I missed that it had to be PS2. Yeah, they're all good but 1 and 3 aren't that different. Might as well start from the beginning if you're emulating them.

I definitely preferred Jak 1 to Jak 2, but I've never played 3.

okay I started playing Jak 1 and it’s perfect, there’s some slowdown and I have to tweak my emu settings but I’m hoping I can get it to a point where it runs smoothly

my long-delayed PS5 arrived and came with a download code for Horizon Forbidden West

I haven't even felt like playing video games lately, but I sunk a bunch of hours into it over the weekend

oooh I'm at the point in Vampire Survivors now where I've got the list of evolutions and I plan my upgrades based around them and now I am reliably getting to 25+ minutes every time I play!

I am also realizing that even with a healthy Attractorb upgrade and a combination of weapons/evo that makes you pretty much invincible so you can basically run enemies over like a lawnmower to collect gems, it's really hard to get to Level 99 before the 30 minute mark... is there an ideal level for this?

Inlaid Library, with a fully evolved Pentagram (yes it kind of sucks in its early levels but its evolution is borderline OP).

Just cracked open Citizen Sleeper and the ~*vibez*~ at least are my catnip.

I just bought the following:

Full Throttle
Sam & Max Hit The Road
Day of the Tentacle
Disco Elysium
moon: Remix RPG Adventure

I started Sam & Max yesterday and it's fun. I also started Antichamber which is novel and curious but it's not blowing my mind.

i got stuck in antichamber and never finished it but it was a neat game thats probably been done better in the 10 years since though i'm not sure by what

Amazon prime has maniac mansion free right now for those interested. They've been giving away one lucasarts game a month for a few months now.

I'm starting to get tired of vampire survivors. I unlocked everything. Now playing some short casual games on my phone, like five-bn games. They're bad but they pass the time.

Did you unlock the secret characters too like Red Death and Leda? I have them all, I think, and so I've been trying to beat the Bone Zone with normal characters.

Yes, I looked at the VS wiki to figure out how to unlock everything. Bone Zone was what I was spending most of my time in when I wasn't grinding for eggs.

Iguess in the subject related to egg farming, something I've been wondering is if evolving Infinite Corridor can happen sooner than later in a run. I always try to get a couple evolved weapons before I pick up the rings so that I have a fair chance against the guardians. Am I being overly cautious?

I've tried it. It takes 20+ minutes for me to get Infinite Corridor, which isn't worth it. Can't build enough levels without at least one other evolved weapon first.

I have finished the main quests of Horizon: Forbidden West

I had New Super Mario U Deluxe on my switch since I got it two years ago and I started playing it a few days ago and my God. I’ve never played a SNES Mario game before so using the extra moves/buttons etc (the glide jump etc) took me some time to complete. Anyway I’ve finished it and now I’m grinding for coins to unlock the secret levels. Loved every minute.

super fucking mario!!

What

apex legends

portal and now portal 2 on the switch. in my head, the first one was the classic, i think because the twist blew my mind at the time, but on replay portal 2 is so much better. the decrepit world is amazing and it's so funny. portal now kind of just plays like an intro to portal 2.

i didnt like the dialogue in 2 but i do have strong positive memories of the whole section of the game where you climb back up through the abandoned facility, that was good environment design

I thought the story was one of the best parts of it, if you have a high tolerance for JK Simmons.

Still pining for Half-Life 3, but Portal has been so satisfying, am okay if it's just the two great games.

I have high tolerance for JK Simmons and almost zero tolerance for Stephen Merchant so yeah, 2 was a slog.

I owned a steam deck for a couple of days last week (almost immediately resold it because the aftermarket value's too high for me to justify keeping it) and played the Aperture Desk Job thing, which is really no more than a system demo. But that's set in the portal universe and was a fun half hour.

I keep pretending that I will score a PS5 sooner or later so am wary of starting anything I'd prefer to start on that system. (Similarly, I haven't uninstalled Elden Ring yet because I know as soon as I do they'll introduce DLC and I don't want to start over to enjoy that). Anyway, has anyone played "Mad Max?" That seems like it could be fun, like "Borderlands" but better as single player (and maybe not as dumb)?

Why not wait to play Mad Max on the PS5? ;-) It's a middling experience but it has some Mad Max flavor. I think you can find something better.

a bunch of the better games I want to play all offer upgrades for the PS5. I wanted to pick one that didn't (afaict).

(Similarly, I haven't uninstalled Elden Ring yet because I know as soon as I do they'll introduce DLC and I don't want to start over to enjoy that)

Deleting a game from a PS4 doesn't delete your save file you know. Save file data is its own separate thing (and if you're a PS+ member it gets stored both on your console and in the cloud, so it'll transfer over to Ps5 easily etc).

I'm not a ps+ member. So you're saying all the games I uninstall, there's still a save file installed on the console somewhere? I figured gone is gone, but maybe that makes sense. I imagine the save files are actually pretty small compared to the game itself.

Yes, and the PS consoles have the ability to copy saves to USB storage as well, if you don't have PS+

yes, you can transfer both the game and the save files to external storage, the save data is tiny and can be put on any USB storage device

the game itself needs a drive specifically formatted for exclusive PS4/5 use. it's still useful because transferring back and forth from USB storage is still much faster than re-downloading and re-installing it all. besides, the PS5 (and i assume the 4 as well) allow playing from the USB drive itself so transferring it back to internal storage isn't mandatory

i believe you'll be locked into playing the PS4 version on the PS5 in order to carry your save data but that's actually a plus in this case because the PS4-on-5 version is the better way to play it anyway

Yeah, I recall reading that about Elden Ring, that for whatever reason the PS4 version on PS5 sometimes runs better than the PS5 version. Anyway, need to get a PS5 first. Hopefully this Amazon invite thing pays off; there is some suspicion that the invites (which you signed up for weeks ago) will go out on prime day to help boost/goose sales numbers.

What, so Amazon can tell their shareholders that prime day was a resounding success with $X in sales? Sounds kind of like hogwash

OK, I'm thinking next up for me will be "Ghost of Tsushima." Gonna play the PS4 version on PS5, since it doesn't seem the PS5 upgrade is worth the $20 or $30 extra, or however much it is.

(Was kind of a pain to transfer the save date from Elden Ring to PS5, btw. Maybe if I was going to transfer to the PS4 save data to the PS5 version, but playing the PS4 version on PS5 required me to download the save date to a USB drive and install it on the PS5 from there. Fwiw.)

Dicey Dungeons got an update last week with 6 more quests, so I'm sucked back in.

got woken up at 6am this morning so i figured i'd check for PS5s in stock and found one at target!!! gonna be wrapping up FFXV in 60fps then probably on to yakuza7

I'm now playing the Miles Morales Spider-Man game and Stray on PS5

I started playing Spider-man PS4 again, this time on the PS5, but I am getting the PS4 Miles from the library and using it to buy the remastered Spider-man for PS5 and start over with that instead. Can't wait to play Stray, too, but I think I'll wait for it to go on sale.

mh, thoughts on Stray so far? I'm thinking of getting it too