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What are you playing?

Forza Horizon 3, 4 and 5 most of this rainy day :)
3 is still an excellent game and all three are really polished.
forza-horizon-3.jpg
 
Terra Invicta, because I'm a masochist apparently :D
 
"Some say it has the graphical charm of an income tax assistant software from the late nineties" :D.

Sold, I'll try it for sure.
 
Finished Castlevania Lords of Shadow - Ultimate Edition (PC)
Already finished back then on PS3 and enjoyed it.
So, tried on PC , as the game sometimes struggle to perfectly run on PS3.
Now, it's in the best shape for the game : widescreen, better resolution and constant fps !
But this time it was a love / hate experience. I've started the game, and it growing to be boring and left it rot on the hardrive.
Almost 2 years later, i've continued the game, and it was allright.
Lords of Shadow reminds you why Uncharted, God of War, or Shadow of the Colossus are great games.
They're refined to the best.
Here the game is plagued with boring combat, spongious ennemies, lots of QTE (especially during bosses, sometimes it drags too long, and if you miss the QTE, you have to restart the part), some tricky parts ... (the music box !)
It's always weaker than the games it was inspired.
It's not a total failure, it just sad that with a bit of polishing, it could have been a near perfect game, clearly on par with the greatests.
Because when everything clicks, it's very very good.
The atmosphere is damn good, melancholic, dark, depressive, a lot of work have been done in the art department.
Everything is cinematic here, the beautiful atmospheric music, the scenery ...
Even today the game is beautiful, i'll put some screenshoots, and some artworks.
It's a good game, not perfect, but not as bad as some critics says. Some passage are tedious, but doable.
As a huge fan of Castlevania the serie, it's a solid game, not a so good Castlevania.
The 2 DLC are useful to the story, they're short, but not equals.
The 1st with the little vampire, brings you back to the castle and it's on par with the rest of the game, the 2nd, is a bit dull.

20250225200015_1.jpg

Clearly a western take of Castlevania, it looks like a RPG, note that an RPG in this universe could have been a massive hit, The Witcher style !

20250302193708_1.jpg

Every environments are so well done ! Artists have done a lot of work, as the levels change constantly their environments, from forest to swamps, castle to ruins, hellish lava pool to frozen village ...

20250304205517_1.jpg

Look at this overly dramatic scenery ! The passage in the castle is great !

20250307194508_1.jpg

The passage with Baba Yaga has a very The Witcher feeling, don't you thinck ?

Castlevania_ Lords of Shadow - Ultimate Edition 22_03_2025 18_30_25.jpg

There is a ton of artwork to unlock, and they're beautiful, very close to the final render in game.
 
Finished Castlevania Lords of Shadow - Ultimate Edition (PC)
Already finished back then on PS3 and enjoyed it.
So, tried on PC , as the game sometimes struggle to perfectly run on PS3.
Now, it's in the best shape for the game : widescreen, better resolution and constant fps !
But this time it was a love / hate experience. I've started the game, and it growing to be boring and left it rot on the hardrive.
Almost 2 years later, i've continued the game, and it was allright.
Lords of Shadow reminds you why Uncharted, God of War, or Shadow of the Colossus are great games.
They're refined to the best.
Here the game is plagued with boring combat, spongious ennemies, lots of QTE (especially during bosses, sometimes it drags too long, and if you miss the QTE, you have to restart the part), some tricky parts ... (the music box !)
It's always weaker than the games it was inspired.
It's not a total failure, it just sad that with a bit of polishing, it could have been a near perfect game, clearly on par with the greatests.
Because when everything clicks, it's very very good.
The atmosphere is damn good, melancholic, dark, depressive, a lot of work have been done in the art department.
Everything is cinematic here, the beautiful atmospheric music, the scenery ...
Even today the game is beautiful, i'll put some screenshoots, and some artworks.
It's a good game, not perfect, but not as bad as some critics says. Some passage are tedious, but doable.
As a huge fan of Castlevania the serie, it's a solid game, not a so good Castlevania.
The 2 DLC are useful to the story, they're short, but not equals.
The 1st with the little vampire, brings you back to the castle and it's on par with the rest of the game, the 2nd, is a bit dull.

View attachment 391307
Clearly a western take of Castlevania, it looks like a RPG, note that an RPG in this universe could have been a massive hit, The Witcher style !

View attachment 391308
Every environments are so well done ! Artists have done a lot of work, as the levels change constantly their environments, from forest to swamps, castle to ruins, hellish lava pool to frozen village ...

View attachment 391309
Look at this overly dramatic scenery ! The passage in the castle is great !

View attachment 391310
The passage with Baba Yaga has a very The Witcher feeling, don't you thinck ?

View attachment 391311
There is a ton of artwork to unlock, and they're beautiful, very close to the final render in game.
With all the Good Games that have been released in the last 3 years, it is easy to get distracted. I love how you described this. I have this in my library. I guess I am going to stop messing around with Panam in my apartment and finish CP2077 to get into some of this. Great post. This is probably my favourite Thread on TPU. No BS Mine is bigger than yours. Just a celebration of what for me is the best about owning a modern PC. We have a vast library of older Games to enjoy.
 
Currently playing Grand Theft Auto IV. The dark grey setting is something I really like about the game. Still a beautiful game despite its age.
 

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Just a celebration of what for me is the best about owning a modern PC. We have a vast library of older Games to enjoy.
I (re)doing a lot of PS3 games now on PC. It was my last favorite console gen, with tons of good games, and apart some exclusivities, most of them are avalaible on PC.
It's really a joy to play theses games in their full glory, 21/9, good resolution, AA, constant FPS ...
If only we can have the 3 first Uncharted :)
 
PS3 was the point where complacency eclipsed quality. Never could bring myself to buy a PS3, or especially Xbox, back then. Without doubt these games play better and look as they were intended to on PC. Not sure where on the spectrum emulation lands since ports are never fully as good as the game should've been on native hardware.



Lego City Undercover has that inner element of completeness that games increasingly lack even at end of development. Stripping the Mayor's car in broad daylight and leaving it on blocks was an early sign the childish pacing and gameplay logic weren't going to dictate a single IQ point gaming experience. Tamely done but enjoyable humor that is present everywhere in everything you can do.

Screenshot(3332)-20250324-2209-2847_result.jpg


Riding a busted fire hydrant in the middle of a high paced police pursuit with absolutely no impact on ability to pick it back up or play with another game element.
Screenshot(3332)-20250324-2319-2031_result.jpg
 
Such a classic, under appreciated movie!
There's a reason why it's a part of my collection, and it ain't just because of the stunning 21 years old Jennifer. :D
 
Following Angler: Call of the Wild reaching end of development there was not much outward communication by Expansive Worlds. Shame the funding and other numbers didn't allow them to stay active until Steam Fishing Fest 2025 this June. :(

Hunter COTW on the other hand just keeps getting better on the same timeline as Angler got pulled from. New free update (and small paid DLC) arrived today with a much desired snow map and one other arriving in the near future. Even the older maps continue to be subtly improved through optimizations to graphics and elsewhere (top half of screenshot used to be much closer to bottom half).

Screenshot(9400)-20250325-1020-3803_result.jpg
 
In between my Witcher III sessions I'm playing "The Suicide Of Rachel Foster"

It's giving me serious "The Shining" vibes :laugh:

TSORF2.png
TSORF.png
 
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Stalin invaded the US east coast yesterday and won WW3, with a 45% global occupation rate, and only South America left as the last bastion of freedom not under communist control. The Cubans are still waiting for their crisis that'll never need to come round. Sweden and Finland somehow avoided everything and are still intact, Sweden selling everyone ball bearings and the Finns... I dunno, being Finnish.

Poland, while hating my guts and turning 50% fascist and still 0% communist, has done half the fighting for me, sacrificing many millions of soldiers in the process, and ran away with a tiny sliver of the territories during the peace treaty. Somehow, they still love/hate me enough to stay faction buddies. The PRC under Mao destroyed the Japanese for me and even Australia is now Chinese Australia, and every kangoroo is now forced to eat with chopsticks.

Even saw a small resurgence of Ze Germanz with Adolf repopulating the Rhineland with his Brotherhood of Europe... a faction consisting of themselves and ... the Dominican Republic (very local much EU). That lasted until they found Anschluss with my modern tanks.
 
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Currently playing Terminator: Resistance & Annihilation Line: Zero Day Exploit plus the DLC ,
TR.jpg
 
The sheer amount of content, DAMN. I am kinda missing the old safehouse structure where you could just pick up a bunch of guns and blast everything in any level to smithereens. Or is that still possible? Freelancer doesn't quite do it. Sniper Assassin is great fun, too, you really have to be fast sometimes.

All are free to respond. Vayra has just been the most enthusiastic in recent memory.

Hitman: World of Assassination - Standard or Deluxe?
Not even sure if this is a remaster or bundle of previously released games + new content or what all the HM2 / HM3 references imply.
 
Currently going to max my stats on FF X HD. Boring but rewarding as I still have the superbosses (arena originals, dark aeons and Penance) to go. Maxing out luck takes ages but I just watch movies and series from my PC at the same time while doing this.

I (re)doing a lot of PS3 games now on PC. It was my last favorite console gen, with tons of good games, and apart some exclusivities, most of them are avalaible on PC.
It's really a joy to play theses games in their full glory, 21/9, good resolution, AA, constant FPS ...
If only we can have the 3 first Uncharted :)
I prefer playing on real hardware though funnily most games run way better when emulated. :D yet games look better on my shelf than as bits on my HDD. :laugh:
 
Stalin invaded the US east coast yesterday and won WW3, with a 45% global occupation rate, and only South America left as the last bastion of freedom not under communist control. The Cubans are still waiting for their crisis that'll never need to come round. Sweden and Finland somehow avoided everything and are still intact, Sweden selling everyone ball bearings and the Finns... I dunno, being Finnish.

Poland, while hating my guts and turning 50% fascist and still 0% communist, has done half the fighting for me, sacrificing many millions of soldiers in the process, and ran away with a tiny sliver of the territories during the peace treaty. Somehow, they still love/hate me enough to stay faction buddies. The PRC under Mao destroyed the Japanese for me and even Australia is now Chinese Australia, and every kangoroo is now forced to eat with chopsticks.

Even saw a small resurgence of Ze Germanz with Adolf repopulating the Rhineland with his Brotherhood of Europe... a faction consisting of themselves and ... the Dominican Republic (very local much EU). That lasted until they found Anschluss with my modern tanks.
While I'm not into that genre at all, it does sound amusing to mess around with stuff like that.:laugh: 'Brotherhood of EU, I don't even want to imagine whats even that'

Nothing new to post from me, still playing my usual 2 gachas and one of them is getting a big update in a day tho I wanted to go back to D4 and finish my Season 7 Ball Lightning Sorc cause I will skip S8 anyway and check up on Last Epoch instead since it had some serious updates since the last time I've played it..'
 
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Currently going to max my stats on FF X HD. Boring but rewarding as I still have the superbosses (arena originals, dark aeons and Penance) to go. Maxing out luck takes ages but I just watch movies and series from my PC at the same time while doing this.
I have a love-hate relationship with Final Fantasy X's optional content. Your comment here is an example of why, haha.

On one hand, there's a lot of it. It surpassed what Final Fantasy IX offered, and that was said to offer a lot for its time! Much of it is fun... once. The novelty often wears off before you realize a fair portion of it is far too much grind, and often for its own sake.

You could say that about anything eventually, but what made the side content in Final Fantasy X feel bad for me mostly come down to how much grind the ultimate weapons and monster arena are, and how they are all for their own sake. What I mean is this. Like, yes, breaking the damage cap felt amazing at first since you never could do such damage before... but once I realized the core game itself isn't balanced at all with that in mind, and that such levels of damage and stats is only necessary for the very same content you're grinding to get the S.Levels and spheres to have those weapons and stats (especially in the original NA version which had no dark aeons)... then it just felt pointless. I don't mind the concept, but the balance spread was way off for me. If the damage cap was simply 99K (with no need for a break damage limit at all), and the extra damage/stat potential offered by the ultimate weapons/a maxed out sphere grid respectively wasn't so far ahead of the main game content (and in turn, if the grind to get those additional bonuses was thus reduced), then it would have felt better for me.

If that sounds confusing, sorry. I tried to explain it the best could.

As it is, while I don't truly hate most of its optional content, I also don't feel compelled to do it on most playthroughs.
 
I have a love-hate relationship with Final Fantasy X's optional content. Your comment here is an example of why, haha.

On one hand, there's a lot of it. It surpassed what Final Fantasy IX offered, and that was said to offer a lot for its time! Much of it is fun... once. The novelty often wears off before you realize a fair portion of it is far too much grind, and often for its own sake.

You could say that about anything eventually, but what made the side content in Final Fantasy X feel bad for me mostly come down to how much grind the ultimate weapons and monster arena are, and how they are all for their own sake. What I mean is this. Like, yes, breaking the damage cap felt amazing at first since you never could do such damage before... but once I realized the core game itself isn't balanced at all with that in mind, and that such levels of damage and stats is only necessary for the very same content you're grinding to get the S.Levels and spheres to have those weapons and stats (especially in the original NA version which had no dark aeons)... then it just felt pointless. I don't mind the concept, but the balance spread was way off for me. If the damage cap was simply 99K (with no need for a break damage limit at all), and the extra damage/stat potential offered by the ultimate weapons/a maxed out sphere grid respectively wasn't so far ahead of the main game content (and in turn, if the grind to get those additional bonuses was thus reduced), then it would have felt better for me.

If that sounds confusing, sorry. I tried to explain it the best could.

As it is, while I don't truly hate most of its optional content, I also don't feel compelled to do it on most playthroughs.
Monster arena done, stats max'd on Tidus/Auron/Rikku except luck and dark Valefor also done. Now it's time for dark Ifrit.

I remember when playing on emulator and I accidentally downloaded the NTSC-U version and I was hella confused that where's the dark aeons, didn't know that they weren't a thing until the international and PAL versions.

Also, 9999 cap is broken in VIII, Cactuar can deal 10000, Kamikaze, Shockwave Pulsar and Eden can deal up to 60000 damage ;)

edit: done, time for dark Ixion
edit: done, time for dark Shiva
edit: done, now grinding for luck for dark Bahamut
 
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In between my Witcher III sessions I'm playing
Currently replaying TW3 also. Just picked up Uma. It’s been almost 10 years (May will be its 10 year anniversary) and like a whole new game because I didn’t remember much of it. I know I don’t remember there being so many stupid keyboard commands to remember! :laugh:
 
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