CharlesReed
@CharlesReed@kbin.social
Savior and destroyer of Oakmont, Massachusetts.
- Comment on Let's discuss: The Sims 5 months ago:
Sims 3 has the most hours played in my steam library, but I haven't played it recently. I seem to go in cycles where it's all I'll play for a few weeks, and then I won't touch it for several months, and then I'll come back to it again. It's a great game to have mindless fun in, and last I checked, the mod community was still going strong.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 26th 5 months ago:
I finished Arthur's act for We Happy Few, and now I kind of remember why I stopped playing the first time. Just finishing the first act feels like a complete game in itself, and it definitely takes up enough time to be a complete game, especially with how large the map is and with as many side quests as there are. It feels rather daunting to start all over again from scratch as Sally. I thought about playing another game before starting Sally's story, but I'm afraid that I'll do the same thing I did last time and end up not finishing it again.
- Comment on Sims 4 devs assemble team to focus on fixing bugs and upping performance 5 months ago:
I did the same thing. It may have been because there weren't as many dlcs and expansions, but it just felt really dull. Plus it didn't have the completely open world like 3 did. Sitting through all those loading screens every time you wanted to go somewhere was a pain.
- Comment on Sims 4 devs assemble team to focus on fixing bugs and upping performance 5 months ago:
Sims 3, with all its faults, is the golden age. Long live the mods.
- Comment on Sims 4 devs assemble team to focus on fixing bugs and upping performance 5 months ago:
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 19th 5 months ago:
They made a lot of changes this season to weapon crafting and modifying that's made it much easier than previous seasons. There's also a couple things that they made available across all difficulty tiers instead of the two higher ones. I haven't looked into specific specs, but I believe they've also buffed a bunch of the skills.
I don't know about mtx, but the paid battle pass is really only cosmetic stuff and doesn't affect core gameplay, if that's what you're worried about. There are things called "smoldering ashes" which serve as season permanent buffs, but they are available on the free battle pass, so everyone gets those. - Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 19th 5 months ago:
Previously I saved my good rolled aspects “for later”… and later was usually beyond my playtime for a season :-)
Oh yeah, this 100%. I did the same thing, were I'd save aspects for when I'd get a "better" piece of armor/weapon. I'm enjoying a much cleaner stash.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 19th 5 months ago:
I made it about 3/4ths of the way through my second play of Lies of P before I decided I had to take a mental sanity break. I don't think I've ever played a game that has made me so angry and frustrated because I can't change the core trajectory of the story.
::: spoiler .
After learning the lore in the first run and actually hearing the King of Puppet's dialogue during his boss fight this time, I feel extra bad that I complained so much about it in my first playthrough. Geppetto can go fuck himself. I am begging this game to let me side with Romeo.
:::To fill the Lies of P void, I decided to take another go at We Happy Few. I started a playthrough a few years ago and finished the first act, Arthur's story, but never got around to the rest of the game. I don't feel like I got to fully immerse myself in the world last time, so I'm going to take my time this round.
Diablo 4: Season 4 started this week, and I'm going with a fire/ice based sorcerer build. I'm liking the changes that they made to crafting and modifying weapons, and I've already made it to the paragon boards. I also got one of my friends playing with me this season with a similar build, so it'll be extra fun.
- Comment on Microsoft to release next 'Call of Duty' game on subscription service, source says 5 months ago:
This is why I like GamePass. There's a bunch of games on there that I probably wouldn't play otherwise. And yeah, they're not all great, but I've found some that I really enjoy.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 12th 6 months ago:
After 3.5 weeks and 140 hours, I finally finished Lies of P. The optional final boss was giving me so much trouble that it took me three days to get to a place where I was lucky enough to beat it. I told myself I wasn't going to play new game+ anytime soon, but towards the end of the week I ended up starting another round, so I guess I'm technically still working on this game.
Since I finally finished Lies of P (for the first time), I did a little cathartic rip and tearing with Doom '16. After all the trouble I had, it was very nice annihilating enemies with one BFG shot.
I've played Close to the Sun before on PC and liked it a lot, and it was on GamePass so I decided to play again. But it either wasn't as good as I remember or is just a bad console port. I'm leaning towards just being a bad port, because I like the story, and I like the characters (even though I have my very strong stance that an only child wrote this), but there was a lot of jankiness and jerkiness that was not present on the PC. Still finished it though, since it's not a very long game.
- Comment on Microsoft closes Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin and others 6 months ago:
Same here, I finished Ghostwire: Tokyo for the first time a few weeks ago and have always been a fan of The Evil Within. This sucks.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 5th 6 months ago:
Nice! Thanks for the tip.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 5th 6 months ago:
I assume you use block/perfect block to reflect? I've been using the Aegis legion arm to "block", so I guess I better brush up on actual blocking.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 5th 6 months ago:
Yep, her second phase is giving me a lot of trouble.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of May 5th 6 months ago:
I'm still working on Lies of P. I'm starting to feel like Jack Torrance in The Shining, but I am just half a chapter away from the end. Currently working on getting past the mid-chapter boss.
- Comment on Alan Wake II Has yet to Recoup Development and Marketing Expenses; Tencent Raised Stakes in Remedy to 14% 6 months ago:
I'm convinced they would have done so much better if it hadn't been Epic exclusive. I know more than one person who won't play it on PC because of this.
It's a great game otherwise. - Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 28th 6 months ago:
Still working on Lies of P. This game is taking me way too long to finish. I am still making progress, and I'm still having a good time, but I think I'm going to find a shooter style game to add to the mix so I don't get too burnt out or too bored with the combat style.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 21st 6 months ago:
Finally finished out Diablo 4: Season 3, again after finding a group to tag along with to fight Duriel. I am very glad Diablo 4 doesn't make you complete every objective to get rewards and move on to the next chapter like 3 does, otherwise I'd have to deal with FOMO. Speaking of Diablo 3...
Diablo 3: Season 31 started last week, so I've shifted my Diablo focus to that. I'm going with a witch doctor build this round, and have already made my way through chapter 3.
Still working on Lies of P. I've been replaying earlier sections in order to level up some more, because fuck the King of Puppets and it being a two part fight. I just got into the weapon assembly aspect, so I've been playing around with different builds to see what works for me. And I think this game is teaching me button control and strategy? I'm used to panicky button mashing, but I've quickly learned I cannot do that here. Still, I'm happy with what little progress I've made this week.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 14th 7 months ago:
Absolutely, that's one of the reasons I try to mix up my gaming between longer games that I know will take me a while and short games I get through in a night. I knew Ghostwire would take me longer because it's open world (the main story itself is kind of short, but I'm a completionist who has to get everything collectible), and I figure Lies of P will take me a while just from dying and restarting a bunch.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 14th 7 months ago:
Managed to get all the campaign achievements for Ghostwire: Tokyo, including a really, really stupid RNG one. There's an extra mode called The Spider's Thread, but I don't think I'm going to focus on that anytime soon. I need a break from Tokyo lol.
I wanted something that wasn't very combat heavy next and picked Kona. For the most part it felt like Kholat meets The Painscreek Killings - a fun little detective walking sim that just lets you loose without really telling you where to go or what to do, all while taking place during a blizzard. I liked wandering around and trying to figure things out myself, and the narrator didn't seem too overbearing. I had a good time, up until the ending. It felt rushed and just kind of... happened. Like one moment you're going along in the forest looking for stuff, and then all of the sudden, here's an explaination for everything in a short scene! Now literally run to the end! Bye! I was hoping for something a little more drawn out.
I'm not really into soulslike games, but since Lies of P was on GamePass, I thought I might as well try it out. I'm actually having a good time playing it. I'm usually not great at soulslike since they can be frustrating, and I'm not a fan of "die in order to learn", but I'm making progress and the story is kind of interesting. I really like the atmosphere, very steampunk vibes. Some of the characters could have had a little more effort put into them, but that's a minor complaint overall.
- Comment on ‘Dead Space’ Franchise Is Officially On Hold at Electronic Arts - Bloomberg 7 months ago:
Are you referring to the statis? All of the Dead Space game have that feature, even the first one.
- Comment on A very timely "Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 7th" 7 months ago:
I'm a bit if the opposite, I seem to thrive on games that have a lot of collectibles and side missions/tasks because it turns into mindless fun between emails.
But I get where you're coming from, and I think that one of the game's pitfalls is the collectibles/side missions to main story ratio. Like finding the stickers/graffiti has been the most difficult for me, so I probably could have done without that one. The relics are really cool, and I love reading about them, but they kind of have a weird spread over the map.
I think the devs could have either made the map smaller (not that it's that large to begin with) with less "stuff", since you don't unlock at least half the map anyway if you just stick the main storyline, or they could have padded out or lengthened the main story so you do unlock all the map before you get to the point where you move "off map". - Comment on Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs Review by MandaloreGaming 7 months ago:
This game gets a lot of (rather justified) flak, but I'll be honest, the first time I played this, it scared the bejeesus out of me. So much so that whenever I would play other games and the lights would start to flicker, my first thought would be "Fuck, the manpigs are coming."
- Comment on A very timely "Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 7th" 7 months ago:
Still working on clearing the map in Ghostwire: Tokyo. There is just so, so much. But even as I'm going through and tying up lose ends, I am loving all the little easter eggs. There's references to previous Tango games, Resident Evil, horror movies, Wizard of Oz of all things... Also, this game has a serious thing for aliens and UFOs? I'm not sure why though. Still fun, even though some tasks have been a little time consuming.
- Comment on A very late "Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 31st" 7 months ago:
After weeks of playing Diablo 4: Season 3 off and on, I've finally hit level 100 (yes, I know, I'm incredibly slow at leveling). I've got one objective left to complete the season, but right now I'm focusing on continuing to level up my glyphs before I go showdown with Duriel or Uber Lilith.
I've been really interested in Ghostwire: Tokyo for a while now, especially since it's made by the same developer at The Evil Within. Even though the game needs a little polishing (it took me way too long to get the controller settings adjusted to something I could comfortably use; idk what they were thinking with the defaults), I am having so much fun with it. But I kinda had to stop reading all the animals' minds for a little bit because it was making me sad. Hearing how some of them are confused and missing their owners was hitting me right in the feels. I've also been playing it with Japanese audio, which is really great and immersive, except for in the boss fights when they're just casually dropping lore but I'm too busy trying to stay alive to read the subtitles. Right now, I've finished up the main story line and am now just mopping up the rest of the map. But there's a lot, so I might be floating around Tokyo for a while.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 24th 7 months ago:
I've been meaning to play Amnesia: The Bunker for a while now, since I love the series. You're in a tighter space than the previous installments, and it doesn't go as quite deep into the lore as Rebirth does, but it felt so much more like an Amnesia game then Rebirth did, since you're learning the story through the notes and whatnot, and there's not really any other characters to interact with for the most part. My first playthrough was super stressful because of the fuel and shitty flashlight situation, and there were a couple of times I didn't think I would actually end up finishing the game. But though the power of crawling around in the dark, I did! After finishing, I was going to set this aside until I saw all the features I could change and switch up on a ng+ customized difficulty, which I thought was really cool, so I ended up playing another round for some mild achievement hunting.
During a monthly get together with a few of my friends, we played Worms W.M.D. as a filler between conversation. I had never played any of the Worms games before, but this one was so much fun. I'm sure part of it had to do with us not really knowing the game and just fucking up trying to learn it, but it was still a good time all around.
- Comment on Resident Evil 9 could be an open world game, it’s claimed 7 months ago:
Village was already kind of an open world (albeit was a small one), so I think they could pull it off.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 10th 8 months ago:
Totally agree! I love how faithful the devs were to the original, and all the enhancements they made, story or otherwise, only add to it imo. Although I think my favorite thing is that they gave Isaac is his voice, and with the original voice actor at that.
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of March 10th 8 months ago:
One of the reasons I replayed Dead Space (2023) was to get the ng+ ending. Did I get all the Marker collectables that I was supposed to gather? Yes. Did I know I had to put them in a special place before leaving the Ishimura? No. No, I did not. So guess who's playing Dead Space again? (Yes, I know I could just YouTube it, but that's not the point.) Anyway, still having fun with this game.
I had an itch to replay Resident Evil 5, so I did. I had no idea that there was an update that made all the QTEs optional (except for some of the bosses). But apparently there was. I'm surprised that almost 15 years later they made a change to it. But thank the elder gods they did, because the QTEs during the cutscenes always made me anxious, especially towards the end.
Played a demo for a game called Haunted House Renovator. It was actually kind of lengthy for a demo and pretty fun. It will be interesting seeing the full product when it comes out.
- Comment on Physical or Digital? 8 months ago:
I'm despising the growing trend of devs/publishers not offering a physical option for consoles (looking at you, Alan Wake 2). I like having the disc on my shelf, especially if it's a series.
