What game are you playing?

[Choop]

Debating on getting a fighting stick for Tekken 8. I kind of hate playing fighting games with a controller, and the d-pad is irritating the shit out of my thumb.

I've been looking into it also, er...well, I have an older Mad Catz Japanese stick, but it would be tremendously handy to have a Crown Korean style lever, or maybe just a straight up leverless style ala Hitbox. I've tried out a leverless controller and it feels kind of strange at first, but there were some execution things that were immediately apparent in how easy they were or could be to do.

I don't have Tekken 8 yet, but it's looking pretty good.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

I've been looking into it also, er...well, I have an older Mad Catz Japanese stick, but it would be tremendously handy to have a Crown Korean style lever, or maybe just a straight up leverless style ala Hitbox. I've tried out a leverless controller and it feels kind of strange at first, but there were some execution things that were immediately apparent in how easy they were or could be to do.

I don't have Tekken 8 yet, but it's looking pretty good.

I'm not ready to commit to a leverless box so I just went with some cheap joystick based fighting box off amazon.
A lot of people seem to love the Razer Kitsune leverless from what I've read.

Tekken 8 is fun, but man do I suck at it. Hopefully I'll suck less with the new controller

 

[wankerness]

Oh yeah and I realized what's making the graphics look like crap for me - it's my TV. When I played it remotely on my phone everything looked all smooth and nice, but on the TV the edges look really rough and pixelated. I don't know if the streaming runs it in a lower resolution and sort of smoothens it out as it scales to the phone's screen (which is higher res than my TV) or what, but it looks much more pleasant that way anyway.

I've been planning on buying a new TV for a long time, so maybe it'll be time for it soon... My current one is 11 years old, and even though it's generally pretty good, the age is starting to show. It also randomly shuts down sometimes, and a couple of times it would only turn the backlight on with no picture until I pulled the power cord and plugged it in again... So I guess I can justify buying a new one soon. Problem is, my demands keep increasing Now I want a 70-75" 120hz one... Which should be a huge improvement, given that my current one is a 47" 60hz 1080p one (top of the line back in 2013).

What TV do you have? I can't really imagine this problem being the fault of your TV unless the TV's resolution doesn't match the playstation settings (ex, the TV is 720p and the playstation is outputting at 1080p), or I guess maybe just if the PS is having to downscale (ex your TV is 720p and your settings are correct). DS2 is an old game, isn't some ultra-slick game of its time like say FFXIII, and really doesn't look much better than DS1 (and some would argue, worse). Your phone would make things look better by virtue of it being much smaller, probably.

I have been using PS remote play a lot recently, with a "backbone" controller that snaps into the phone charger. I hate how Sony programmed the app to require touchscreen for the options button and the touchpad (though the latter kind of makes sense and is way less annoying cause you don't have to touch a tiny little button in the corner of the screen to bring up the ability to press the options button), but other than that I think it's great. I mainly only use it in the house. It's completely playable, even with audio, in my experience. There's probably a tiny bit of lag so I certainly wouldn't use it if I was a shooter guy, and it's really hard to read tiny text on some games that are designed for big TVs (ex the last couple Yakuza games basically require a magnifying glass on the phone), but other stuff like Baldur's Gate 3 and Elden Ring has been completely fine. If I was super-sensitive to framerate drops maybe it would bug me, and every once in a while I get a little "lag spike," but for the most part it seems to run just as well as it does playing it on the TV, albeit without a PS controller and with a tiny display. I will say that my wifi network doesn't have much stuff on it so it might be very much a YMMV situation. I also have no idea how your phone horsepower affects it - I have an iphone 14 pro.

I will say there's a big audio delay if I try using bluetooth headphones (since the controller I use is plugged in, I can't use plugged headphones) so I'm pretty much stuck either using the phone speaker or having sound off, but that's not a big deal.

 

[p0ke]

What TV do you have? I can't really imagine this problem being the fault of your TV unless the TV's resolution doesn't match the playstation settings (ex, the TV is 720p and the playstation is outputting at 1080p), or I guess maybe just if the PS is having to downscale (ex your TV is 720p and your settings are correct). DS2 is an old game, isn't some ultra-slick game of its time like say FFXIII, and really doesn't look much better than DS1 (and some would argue, worse). Your phone would make things look better by virtue of it being much smaller, probably.

I have been using PS remote play a lot recently, with a "backbone" controller that snaps into the phone charger. I hate how Sony programmed the app to require touchscreen for the options button and the touchpad (though the latter kind of makes sense and is way less annoying cause you don't have to touch a tiny little button in the corner of the screen to bring up the ability to press the options button), but other than that I think it's great. I mainly only use it in the house. It's completely playable, even with audio, in my experience. There's probably a tiny bit of lag so I certainly wouldn't use it if I was a shooter guy, and it's really hard to read tiny text on some games that are designed for big TVs (ex the last couple Yakuza games basically require a magnifying glass on the phone), but other stuff like Baldur's Gate 3 and Elden Ring has been completely fine. If I was super-sensitive to framerate drops maybe it would bug me, and every once in a while I get a little "lag spike," but for the most part it seems to run just as well as it does playing it on the TV, albeit without a PS controller and with a tiny display. I will say that my wifi network doesn't have much stuff on it so it might be very much a YMMV situation. I also have no idea how your phone horsepower affects it - I have an iphone 14 pro.

I will say there's a big audio delay if I try using bluetooth headphones (since the controller I use is plugged in, I can't use plugged headphones) so I'm pretty much stuck either using the phone speaker or having sound off, but that's not a big deal.

Yeah, I guess it's the size that does it... It's a Panasonic Viera fullhd led tv, and it was basically the best you could buy for less than 2k a decade ago. Good investment though, I've had to replace almost everything else but the TV still goes strong.

Anyway, yeah, same with xbox streaming, it works surprisingly well. I beat DS1 over that back when I played it Yeah, it gets some pretty severe framerate dips sometimes, but not often enough to really bother me. I have a telescopic clamp kind of gamepad that makes the phone look and feel much like a Switch.

The most annoying thing to me is that it complains that a wired or 5ghz wireless connection is recommended despite that I check the "don't remind me again" box each time. And I am using a 5ghz connection...

 

[wankerness]

Yeah, I guess it's the size that does it... It's a Panasonic Viera fullhd led tv, and it was basically the best you could buy for less than 2k a decade ago. Good investment though, I've had to replace almost everything else but the TV still goes strong.

Anyway, yeah, same with xbox streaming, it works surprisingly well. I beat DS1 over that back when I played it Yeah, it gets some pretty severe framerate dips sometimes, but not often enough to really bother me. I have a telescopic clamp kind of gamepad that makes the phone look and feel much like a Switch.

The most annoying thing to me is that it complains that a wired or 5ghz wireless connection is recommended despite that I check the "don't remind me again" box each time. And I am using a 5ghz connection...

Maybe you have the xbox output set to 4K? My other guess would be you have bad settings turned on on the TV, like "sharpening" or something else that messes with the picture.

 

[p0ke]

Maybe you have the xbox output set to 4K? My other guess would be you have bad settings turned on on the TV, like "sharpening" or something else that messes with the picture.

Yeah sharpening is kinda what it looks like... But then again, if that was it all games would look like crap. Elden Ring at least looks beautiful... So it's just gotta be the game

Anyway, I got further again. Killed the chariot on my first attempt after this little break, then went further into earthen peak. Covetous Demon aka Jabba the Hut was so easy, I didn't take a single hit, but then I found the headless poison snake woman boss... I almost had her on my second attempt (when I knew to use the poison buffing fruit) but then I got greedy and died.

 

[gasolinedreams]

I'm not ready to commit to a leverless box so I just went with some cheap joystick based fighting box off amazon.
A lot of people seem to love the Razer Kitsune leverless from what I've read.

Tekken 8 is fun, but man do I suck at it. Hopefully I'll suck less with the new controller

If you've never played stick before, you can most likely look forward to sucking even more for a while! It is more fun to play on stick than on pad, though.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

If you've never played stick before, you can most likely look forward to sucking even more for a while! It is more fun to play on stick than on pad, though.

I used to play stick back in the day but it's been prob 10 years since I played a fighter consistently.

 

[gasolinedreams]

Ah ok, you'll get right back in it then, I think. Like riding a bike.

 

[p0ke]

I killed the poison snake woman in DS2. I found out that there was a way to remove the poison, and after that the fight was pretty easy. I also summoned the pyromancer to help, but I died during that attempt because my controller suddenly turned itself off and since it's a Fromsoft game, it doesn't pause when that happens... or when anything happens for that matter. And then I didn't have any more Human Effigys so I had no choice but to go in alone. Then I defeated her with 3 estus to spare.
So Iron Keep next. The enemies are kinda hard hitting, but as long as I take them one by one they're really easy. I have a shield that blocks 100% so I just block their attack once and then hit 2-3 times and they're down.

 

[Crungy]

I just started playing Ashes via Gzdoom and I dig it so far. I played the fuck out of Doom 1 and 2 back in the day, not really any of the following games for some reason.

So coming from that, and I'm probably late to the game, what people have done with Doom mods blows me away. Another great mod is Castelvania Simon's Destiny.

 

[gabito]

I've been playing Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

I like it. It's kind of like if you're playing a smaller version of 2018's God of War, but Kratos is a 20-something woman and she forgot to take her medication.

 

[p0ke]

I've been playing Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

I like it. It's kind of like if you're playing a smaller version of 2018's God of War, but Kratos is a 20-something woman and she forgot to take her medication.

It seemed cool at first but got very monotonous after a few hours. I never finished it, but I've been considering picking it up again just to see if there's more story to it. And the trailer for the second part looks pretty nice,.

 

[TedEH]

^ I liked that one well enough to make it to the end, but bailed on the final boss. Can't remember why. What I do remember is that it's one of those games that hides some information from you, which is interesting, but IMO has been implemented better before.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Wallowing around chapter 3 of Call of Dragon: Infantile Warfare, and the game has made me miss Hawaii. I was only there briefly a few years ago to visit family, but walking around the streets of Waikiki beach, or even buying an RG570 from a store across the Ala Wai Blvd river, brought back some fond memories. They even got the rain mechanics on point too.

 

[rokket2005]

I finished Unicorn Overlord on Sunday night. About 80 hours to do everything and it was really good overall. I was hoping for a more involved story or bigger twist from Vanillaware, since I more or less predicted the ending quite a ways before the end of the game.
As a Disgaea fan the process of creating units/battalions and making them steamroll everything was fun and the coliseum as a challenge mode after the story part of it was done is nice.

Very pretty art from Vanillaware of course, music was pretty good but kinda standard and not nearly as S tier as 13 Sentinels soundtrack was. Gameplay was fun if you're into to more tactical theorycrafting and menu diving. A little repetitive towards the end, but that also was putting 80 hours into a game in 6 days, so can't really fault the game for that.

 

[p0ke]

I got to the Smelter Demon... And it killed me immediately thanks to the one million enemies leading up to the fight. I definitely need to go back and grind for a bit before I take a serious attempt at him.

Anyway, this is the first boss that actually feels like a DS-boss. As in you know immediately when you enter the mist that you're fucked

 

[wankerness]

I've been playing Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

I like it. It's kind of like if you're playing a smaller version of 2018's God of War, but Kratos is a 20-something woman and she forgot to take her medication.

I got REALLY bored with that game by the end. It's very, very repetitive and I didn't like how the combat sections were segregated from the walking around sections. It's like, you walk around for a while, then whoops, the room gets locked and a bunch of enemies start spawning, and you have to fight a whole bunch of them one after the other, and then back to exploration section. It's not like most games with deliberate enemy placement throughout the level. And it gets tedious cause every level they just add like, one new gimmick (ex enemies get a new attack, or you start having to fight two at once, etc). The only real variety in combat are the couple of bosses. I did think the production values and especially audio were good, but I thought it was also kind of a miserable experience, partly by design and partly due to the way combat was implemented.

I got to the Smelter Demon... And it killed me immediately thanks to the one million enemies leading up to the fight. I definitely need to go back and grind for a bit before I take a serious attempt at him.

Anyway, this is the first boss that actually feels like a DS-boss. As in you know immediately when you enter the mist that you're fucked

Smelter is one of the only bosses in that game that I have a really easy time using a 2H and just rolling through everything and fighting him head-on, as opposed to most bosses where you just circle around them and poke them in the butt. Make sure you're using a chloranthy ring (or the stamina regen ring) and only hitting him once or twice between dodges. His attacks are very simple, you just have to err on the side of caution cause when he does the jump, sometimes he'll do an explode spell afterwards.

The runback sucks. My first playthrough of that game Iron Keep was definitely one of the areas where I killed enemies 12 times to despawn them. But now I never bother cause Smelter is pretty easy to deal with.

 

[gabito]

It seemed cool at first but got very monotonous after a few hours. I never finished it, but I've been considering picking it up again just to see if there's more story to it. And the trailer for the second part looks pretty nice,.

^ I liked that one well enough to make it to the end, but bailed on the final boss. Can't remember why. What I do remember is that it's one of those games that hides some information from you, which is interesting, but IMO has been implemented better before.

I got REALLY bored with that game by the end. It's very, very repetitive and I didn't like how the combat sections were segregated from the walking around sections. It's like, you walk around for a while, then whoops, the room gets locked and a bunch of enemies start spawning, and you have to fight a whole bunch of them one after the other, and then back to exploration section. It's not like most games with deliberate enemy placement throughout the level. And it gets tedious cause every level they just add like, one new gimmick (ex enemies get a new attack, or you start having to fight two at once, etc). The only real variety in combat are the couple of bosses. I did think the production values and especially audio were good, but I thought it was also kind of a miserable experience, partly by design and partly due to the way combat was implemented.

Yeah, all valid concerns.

I'm playing on EASY and looking up the solutions for the puzzles I can't solve in less than 5 minutes, so there's that. I don't know if some of the puzzles are bad or it's just me that suck at solving them, probably both. But anyways I don't have the patience for puzzles I had 20 years ago, and solving them doesn't make me feel smarter or something, so whatever. We live in a time were the solution to the most common problems are a Google search or ChatGPT conversation away, so I won't waste my time with that if I don't feel like it.

Combat is nothing special, and yeah gameplay is SUPER linear and predictable. But I like the rest and I want to see how it ends so I'll probably finish it. It seems it's pretty short anyways, and I got it for like 3 dollars which won't make me feel bad if I don't finish it.

 

[wankerness]

I'm very torn over whether to get Dragon's Dogma 2, Rise of the Ronin, or FF7: Rebirth. Guess I'll wait for the first two to actually come out this week instead of preordering like a sucker. Dragon's Dogma 2 reviews are pretty good, but it apparently has performance issues so I'm guessing it might be better after a patch or two. Rise of the Ronin doesn't seem to have any reviews yet. FF7: Rebirth seems like it's way too long, but I want to play it! I just might wait for it to get discounted.