Hey Folks! There is a thing that I occasionally do on my blog where I run down what I have been playing lately. There are games that I spend time in that don’t necessarily make it to the level of writing about. Regularly Playing has always served as a time for me to update the good ole sidebar of the blog and talk about the things that I am spending time exploring. It is also a time for me to push aside the games that for whatever reason I am just not that into right now. You have a lot of games that make their way back into the rotation, so when I say goodbye it is very rarely forever.
In theory this is a thing that I intend to do every month… but we are living in this time where it still feels like it SHOULD by all rights be March. I think this is going to go down in history as the “Lost Year” because it feels like we are all still very much on pause waiting for things to improve. I expect a significant amount of shake up given that it has been a little over two months since my last update.
To Those Remaining
Diablo III – PC and Switch
Oh Diablo, my sweet Diablo… I can’t ever seem to quit you. This game probably spends the most time on this list, especially now that it exists in switch form. While I am finished with the current PC season, I do still fairly regularly pop it open from bed on the switch and chip away at the achievements there. What can I say that I have not already said a dozen times. I just hope I like Diablo IV even half as much as I love Diablo III.
Final Fantasy XIV – PC
Oh precious baby, you are hanging by a thread. I’ve been back a bit of late for the Yo-Kai watch event, but even that has mostly just been something to do while watching something on television. I know there is a whole new story arc that I need to play through since the 5.3 patch has landed finally. I will do that at some point but I am just not overly excited about Final Fantasy XIV right now. I wish I was because it truly is a wonderful game, but I am not sure what changed in me that struggles to latch onto the MMORPG gameplay experience for very long. I find myself being a strict soloist in the MMO space right now, and as a result I never quite fully buy into the good aspects of the culture and the gameplay offerings. I wish I could get over my fear of doing content with other human beings that I seem to have developed.
World of Warcraft – Retail and Beta – PC
I am not what you would call actively playing this game, but every so often I decide to poke my head in and work on leveling some of my alts. During this lull in the expansion I have leveled one of everything horde side by the Shaman, Priest and Rogue. I’ve been most recently working on the Shaman who is in Pandaria and I believe a few levels away from 100? This is often times the character that I play while we are podcasting, or if I am watching some show because World of Warcraft requires a bare minimum of interactivity to play it on the level I am playing it. I still get a stupid amount of enjoyment from its simple mechanics and my ability to just turn my brain off and rely entirely upon muscle memory.
To The New and Returning
Avengers – PC
I super did not expect to be playing this game right now. I had a lot of issues early on with it, but it turns out that I was more or less bit in the butt by my own shenanigans. There are still some minor issues of mouse and camera not exactly working in the way that I would prefer but it is extremely playable and the story is really solid. In fact I think at this point I am mostly playing because the story is extremely enjoyable. The game hits a deep uncanny valley at times because I think they are trying to shoot halfway between the more traditional comic appearance of the characters and that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I’ve gotten used to it however and once I did the story being told has become pure joy.
Ghosts of Tsushima – PS4
I have been on a bit of a single player narrative game kick of late, and I have been playing a significant amount of Ghosts of Tsushima. I’ve not made it past the first part of the game, because I keep roaming around and killing baddies. I am more or less following the Samurai path where I present a challenge and then proceed to whittle down the rest of the masses after taking out their strongest. I love this game a lot, and the only thing that would have made it better is if I were playing on the PC with a Mouse and Keyboard. I’ve been a bit distracted the last week or so, but I am hoping over the extended weekend that I can return to this and keep moving forward.
Hades – PC
I am not entirely certain that this game has ever made the list, but I have had it in my arsenal for awhile now. I have a deep love for the types of games that Supergiant creates. Even when I don’t mechanically enjoy the game like was the case with Pyre, I really appreciate the story that is being told. Hades is effectively a blend of Diablo and a Rogue Lite game and involves escaping from the underworld, and powering yourself along the way to make that possible. It is a game or repetition because you are absolutely going to die over and over and over in your journey, each time starting back at the start and each time carrying some progress along with you. This has been in early access but we are starting to near an official launch, so I have been playing it again in anticipation. Really solid game.
New World – PC
I’ve not participated in two test events of New World and I am super happy to finally be able to start talking about it. The last long preview event that is wrapping up I believe today had no NDA and as a result I have been able to openly discuss it on the blog. As it stands I am so ready for this game to launch and to start being able to play it in earnest. I am hoping the next event is an Open Beta so that folks who did not pre-order can give it a shot and see if it works for them. This is definitely the type of game that I am going to want to find an active company to play in, and that does not mean that I am sold on the notion of leading one. I’m good at recruiting people, but I don’t seem to be good at keeping people engaged… myself included. So more than likely I will be looking for a company to join that would be open to any friends that I have who are also interested.
Retro Games – Retro Freak Console, PC, and Switch
This is going to be a bit of a generic heading because I have been poking around in a lot of “retro games”. The thing is… I find it weird calling these game retro, because they are from my childhood. It is moments like this that I remember just how damned old I am at this point. Whatever you want to call them I have been back on a kick of trying to get my closet full of older systems and cartridges up and running on modern display technology. I’ve also purchased a Retro Freak console, which allows me to do a bunch of nifty things including dump rom and save games from cartridges and apply translation patches on the fly. The next project is to try and get my Neo Geo CD system up and running again and maybe apply the mod that replaces the very slow CD Rom with an SD Card interface.
To Those Departing
Destiny 2 – PC
I am not sure where we went wrong boo, I’m just not playing you. I have no clue what is up but for whatever reason I just haven’t been interested in playing Destiny 2 in this current season. I am not sure if it is the impending gear sunset or the fact that they are “vaulting” content to remove it from the game, but whatever the case I am just turned off right now. I think games should get larger over time not shrink constantly, and I hate the FOMO aspect of seasonal play. The truth however is just that I have not been interested in playing a shooter lately, and this last few months has been largely marked by me playing more single player and narrative driven content. I am sure I will be back when the expansion launches in November and have a grand ole time.
Guild Wars 2 – PC
You know that mission that AggroChat folks have been on about playing Guild Wars 2 and getting others to play it as well? For whatever reason it never sunk its hooks properly into me. I still don’t fully understand why this game that on paper should be something I am deeply into… never quite seems to work for me. There is just something about the gameplay loop that I don’t find as enjoyable as I should. The story content also never really hooked me, so while I keep trying to revisit this game… it never really does it for me. I am sure I will be back at some point because I am a glutton for punishment with a very short memory.
Phantasy Star Online 2 – PC
I can’t fully explain what happened here and why I stopped playing this game, but it happened. I am not even sure what distracted me. I just know that I have not logged in for a long while other than to convert to the Steam client. I am sure I will return because I was having quite a bit of fun with it. I also know that I was only a few levels away from hitting the cap at the time, and that there is a raised cap now that we have entered Chapter 4. I think I mostly got distracted by a string of single player experiences like Death Stranding.
Torchlight III – PC
I really do want to like this game, but I have not been all that into of it late. I think the core problem I have with the third iteration is that there just isn’t really a class that I enjoy. In Torchlight there was the Destroyer that I played a ton of, and in Torchlight II it was the Engineer. Both were big and bashy melee characters and right now in the third game there are two characters that CAN be played that way… but they both sorta feel fiddly. So I have been splitting my time between the Forge and the Railmaster…. and to be truthful neither of them feel the way that I want them to feel. I know Torchlight is a game that tries to cast aside the traditional Mage, Rogue, Warrior, and Cleric blend of classes… but I mostly just wish they had proper representation of those archetypes. My preference is to play something akin to the Diablo Barbarian or Crusader and they just don’t really have that represented.
Ships Passing in the Night
Death Stranding – PC
Death Stranding was a phenomenal experience. I legit get emotional just thinking about it. This is the game that I needed to play at the time in which I played it. It has become this extremely relevant allegory for the time that we are living in. I am not sure this is a game that everyone would enjoy, because the whole courier aspect of it that I found enjoyable could be pure tedium for someone else. The story being told though is really good and if nothing else you should probably watch a play through of it at some point.
Horizon Zero Dawn -PC
I had been anxiously awaiting the release of Horizon Zero Dawn for the PC, and when it came out I burned through it like wildfire. I think I put in a solid 50 hours in a very short period of time and cracking this open and revisiting it all was truly magical. I love Aloy and the world of Horizon, and I am anxiously awaiting the sequel. This is pretty much the reason why I will be buying a PlayStation 5 as soon as the pre-orders open. If you have never played Horizon Zero Dawn, you owe it to yourself to experience the game and the bow combat just works so much better with a Mouse and Keyboard.
Summary
I guess this is what happens when I wait almost three months between updates, there is a lot of change. I’ve bounced a few things off the list that I am almost certain I will revisit. Hell to be truthful what usually happens is just writing about them ends up making me want to log back in again. I know we have the launch of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 that will be eating some of my time, and I would really like to restart Jedi Fallen Order but this time play it with Mouse and Keyboard. Additionally I really want to play through Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which has been on my list for awhile. In between those I will be wrapping up Avengers main story and seeing if I like the group content or not, and probably poking my head into New World each time a new test event opens. All the while the backlog continues to grow, but I have gotten fairly used to knowing I will never quite conquer it.
The post Regularly Playing: September 2020 Edition appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Today’s post is going to take a bit of a strange twist. Admittedly it is nowhere near the ride that was yesterdays post, but it is going some places. I feel like I need to make a quick side note and thank everyone for the positive response to my tale of being trapped in a small town. I appreciate it greatly even though my brain struggles to believe it. However lets get back to the story at hand, because it might also be a little long in the tooth if I am not extremely careful.
The first thing you need to know about today’s post is what /NoClip is. For the aging among us we will know without a doubt that it is a command line argument that allows you as the player to pass through walls. However more specifically for the focus on this post, it is a group helmed by Danny O’Dwyer that seeks to make documentary films covering the gaming industry. I love the work that they do in part because they are really great films but likely a bigger portion is because I have long dreamed of working in the industry. It is funded largely by Patreon, which I back and the above screenshot is from a really good video on Dwarf Fortress.
For a bit they have been doing a series on the development process of Hades, the fourth release from Supergiant Games. Here comes another side jaunt, because I feel like it is important to understand that I really love Supergiant Games. I loved Bastion and Transistor was a bit of a darling among the AggroChat crew as we gushed upon it over the course of several episodes. Pyre was a bit of a venture off into odd sportsball territory and I did not love playing the game, but I loved the story of the game and ultimately still played quite a bit of it. Hades however takes things back into a direction that is in my wheelhouse, but more about that in a few.
/NoClip has been embedded with Supergiant Games during the course of its development cycle and as a result has been releasing this series of really cool videos covering its life cycle. They covered the launch of early access on Epic Game Store that immediately followed an announcement during The Game Awards. Other videos have taken a deep dive into the patching process and how the music and art assets are created. This week they released a video that I don’t think officially slots into the series but covers the struggles the team has had trying to function in our current COVID-19 world.
They are all pretty great, so here is a list for you to follow up on your own if you so choose. Fair warning, most of the videos are somewhere in the ballpark of 40 minutes.
I originally purchased early access on Epic Game Store on December 6th of 2018… aka immediately after the game got announced on The Game Awards. I have not however really been playing it much, and the most recent doc made me want to explore it again. For the uninitiated, Hades is a Rogue Lite Action RPG where you play as Zagreus, son of Hades. You’ve decided that you are done with being in the Underworld and want to escape so you can join the rest of your family on Mount Olypmus. However in order to do so, you are going to have to fight your way out of Hell.. aka the Underworld of Greek Mythology.
As you fight your way through the underworld, you will be terribly outmatched and will likely find yourself dying rather quickly. Each time you die you will resurrect in the pool of blood located in Hades audience chamber. Each iteration through the dungeon opens up new interactions with the other members of House Hades, and these dialog prompts often serve as tips on how to deal with more frustrating encounters. You will of course be constantly taunted by your Father, who just wants you to stop this nonsense and return to your duties.
Along the way however you are assisted by other gods that want to see you succeed… the first of which being your adopted mother Nyx. While traversing the labyrinthine passages you will discover boons from the gods. It seems that there are a great number of gods that don’t particularly like Hades and would like to see you succeed. As a result they are willing to lend you their power temporarily in order to hasten your escape.
These boons in general give the player a choice between three different options. Each one changes the way the attacks work slightly and serve as a bit of a mutator to shape your play. In order to succeed you will need to adapt the way you approach your encounters to match the features of the boon. The first of these will be available immediately upon entering the underworld, and another one generally follows rapidly giving you a few options as you ascend.
Earlier I said two things that I suppose I should explain a bit. First I said this game is a Rogue Lite, and not a Rogue Like. The difference to me generally has a bunch of different distinctions but the first and most important of these is that as you traverse the Underworld you are able to gain permanent power increases that carry forward with you. I also said that the first god to help you was Nyx, your adopted mother and she granted you the power of her Mirror of Night. While traversing the underworld you can collect a currency called Darkness, which can be spent in your room through the mirror to slowly and surely increase your power level between play throughs.
The other primary aspect of the Rogue Lite is that while there is a heavy emphasis on randomization, and each play through is going to be significantly different… the rooms that you traverse along the way are very much hand crafted. Each entry into the Underworld represents a branching path that ultimately leads to a boss encounter before moving to the next area. While the order of the rooms and the encounters in each of them is different, there are specific rooms with specific encounters and the symbol on the door gives you a rough approximation of the type of room. For example in the above screenshot the room on the left will reward Darkness upon completion, and the room on the right will reward Gemstones that are used for constructing new things in the House of Hades.
The game itself is split up into multiple biomes, and each of those have a set of enemies that can spawn and that you might encounter along the way. While traversing the underworld you will encounter keys, which can be used for a few things but likely the most important is unlocking new weapons. Right now I currently have access to a two handed sword, a bow, a shield and a spear. I believe as you ascend higher you will encounter other weapons including a gun of some sort. Right now I seem to be stuck on the shield as I enjoy its mechanics. I’m playing with mouse and keyboard and it seems to fit nicely with that playstyle. The game itself however has full controller support and that is likely the actual intended way one should be playing this.
No matter what order you take the rooms, it will eventually end in a boss encounter. The first boss is Megaera a Fury, that is extremely quick and I have yet to beat. That said I only started playing again last night and restarted on a Steam copy instead of my original from Epic Game Store. I am not entirely certain if progress should carry over between the two, but I lost a hard drive since when I last played the game so regardless I started fresh last night. The game is exceptionally fun, and the fact that no matter how badly you do… it is highly likely that some progress will carry over at least in the form of new dialog prompts makes it feel like your deaths are serving a greater purpose.
The other thing that I really like about Hades is how fast a cycle of play ends up being. I can pop in and play a bit and feel like I made some progress and then get out and do other things. The game is eventually releasing on the Nintendo Switch once a proper launch happens, and I figure I will pick it up there was well. This is an ideal game to play in that time between when I lay down and when sleep claims me. Admittedly it was the doc series that got me interested in writing about the game, but I figure if nothing else it serves as an introduction to anyone who is not already aware. The game is exceptionally well crafted, as has everything from Supergiant Games been.
Right now the game is available on Steam and on Epic Game Store. I know in the future a Switch Version is coming out and I believe it has also been announced for the PlayStation but with no firm dates on either. If you like Action RPGs or Rogue Lites, then I would suggest checking it out. The 1.0 release is in theory slated for late 2020, but given the state of the world I could see that maybe pushing back a bit. For now on Steam and Epic it is in Early Access and they are patching the game constantly. I also highly suggest checking out the doc series from /NoClip.
The post Revisiting Hades appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Featuring: Â Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, Thalen and special guest lurker Shiana
Tonight we had more topics than we had time to talk about them, but we managed to hit the majority of them.  First up Bel talks about his frustrations with Black Armory the latest content drop in Destiny 2 and their overarching plan of content releases going forward.  He also talks a bit about the Last Wish raid that he got drug through this week. From there we talk a bit about the Game Awards and how weird it is that they are actually relevant.  We discuss how it is turning into E3 part two as major shows give big release information… and occasionally they give an award for things between the commercials. Grace talks about Hades the new title from Supergiant Games and how it jumps right into her wheelhouse of the Action RPG blended with a Rogue Lite.  This also starts a discussion about how Epic Games is vying for serious competition with Steam by discounting their cut of sales. Finally we talk about the new Smash Bros game and the World of Light adventure mode.
Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra and Tamrielo
Tonight we talk about the September game of the month Horizon Zero Dawn. Â As is always the case with our game club shows, this is a full spoiler jaunt into this post apocalyptic vision by Guerilla Games. Â HZD was featured on our Games of the Year show, but since several had yet to beat it we did not do the normal deep dive that we do during a game club show. Â We talk about what might be the most interesting new science fiction property in recent memory.
