everynowandben

everynowandben

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Comments 853

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (May 14-15)

everynowandben

I'm just over halfway through Alien: Isolation and getting tired of it. It's not that interesting in general, and it can be frustrating since the xenomorph will literally just pop up out of nowhere and kill you sometimes. Sometimes it's my fault, and other times the game just decides it's time for me to die and start over at the last checkpoint. All the weapons and gadgets are unnecessary (and practically useless anyway), and the stealth sections are not even close to as exciting as something like Dishonored.

I'm also playing Trek to Yomi and nearing the end. The game looks great in certain ways - the design of the world is stunning - but the framerate is all over the place. Feels like it ranges from 60-20fps, which is kindof baffling considering what's actually being rendered on screen at any given time. The full commitment to black and white also just gets boring after a while. It would have been better if there were at least pops of color now and again, like if blood was red or flames were orange or something. People are saying the combat is tedious, and I agree with that to a certain extent, but more than being repetitive and boring, I find it to be inconsistent and unresponsive. Maybe I just need to "get good" or whatever, but I'm not sure that's the root issue.

I'll probably drag myself through both of these games to completion but I'm considering starting another game just so I can play something a little more fun for me. Maybe I'll jump back into Vestaria Saga instead, but I'm in more of a mood for action.. I should probably just go out and do something in real life instead hahaha 😅

Re: Soapbox: Thief Deserves Another Reboot On Xbox Series X|S

everynowandben

I would love love love another Thief game. The ideas in the article would definitely be cool. It'd be great if they stayed away from the "powers" or whatever you want to call them in Dishonored, like teleporting, and Thief was kept a little more grounded in the gameplay department. Maybe Garrett could get more interesting equipment to help him traverse/sneak in more non-conventional ways. Deep crafting system? Oh, maybe crafting could be super open ended somehow and you could make whatever you can imagine, like a water arrow with a time-bomb attached to it or something. It might be neat to see a robust physics engine that puzzles could be built around too. One thing for sure: A light/dark system based on ray-traced shadows would be a must.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 30 - May 1)

everynowandben

I just finished Evil Within 2 this morning. What a great game! Loved the original, and enjoyed this one even more. Praise be to FPS boost!

Also played some more Remnant FTA with the guys last night. My buddy is obsessed with it and I don't quite understand why. It's solid for what it is, don't get me wrong, but it's not THAT great in my opinion. It's fun to play, but not especially unique, pretty, well written, well designed, etc. I don't know. We're all having fun playing it though which of course is what matters most.

Not sure what I'll play next.. Maybe Life is Strange TC. I bought Returnal about a month ago. Maybe I'll fire that up. Maybe both.

Edit: Played Returnal for ~3 hours and it's just not for me. It's difficult in a way that I find both tedious and overly punishing. I'll be selling it off in the near future.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 16-17)

everynowandben

Started too many games at once, so I need to plan this out...

Almost finished with Kirby and the Forgotten Land. I might be on the last level now actually.

Then I will focus on Bulletstorm which I believe I'm about 2/3 of the way through.

Putting Vestaria Saga on a short hold while I finish these two first. Then I will alternate between that and Return to Castle Wolfenstein which is too frustrating to play more than a level at a time.

Also playing Remnant: From the Ashes with my buddies. We're starting to get the hang of it after our second session last night.

Re: Talking Point: Do You Own Any Xbox Games You've Never Played?

everynowandben

@MagicCat Thanks! A bunch of them were short and/or DLCs and/or games I'd already made some progress on in years past, so it's not quite as much as it sounds like - still definitely a lot though. I was furloughed in 2020 and had a lot of extra time on my hands... It's probably more embarrassing than something to be proud of tbh. You're outpacing me this year! Nice job!! I'm only at 19 so far in 2022. Last year around this time I was at about 55, but that's the difference between having a job/career or not, hahaha...

Re: Talking Point: Do You Own Any Xbox Games You've Never Played?

everynowandben

Nothing on Xbox, but ~50 across all other platforms that I've never played whatsoever. It used to be a lot more that that to be honest, but I made a conscious effort in 2020 to either start (unless they are heavily story driven) or sell all the games I've never touched. I've stuck to this and very rarely buy games anymore (unless I'm super hyped to play them immediately) since I already have so many I was interested in enough to warrant a purchase, and buying more is basically a waste of money that I could spend buying better food or toys for my daughter or future vacations or something worthwhile. In the last 2 years, I've beaten just under 300 games (or DLCs) and have played at least a little bit of about 100 more, just to cross them off the "never even tried it" list. Huge progress at least to be down to ~30% of where I was a couple years ago.

Re: Multiple Games Reduced By 85-95% In The Xbox Spring Sale 2022

everynowandben

@Dusk_Actual Okay, in my opinion, it's not THAT bad, but, it's not even close to as good as Thief Gold, Thief 2, Thief: Deadly Shadows, or any of the Dishonored games. I would recommend only playing Thief 2014 if you've already played all the other games I just listed and you feel the need to complete the series or whatever. Also would recommend checking out Ghost of a Tale if you like a little more adventure/RPG-lite elements in your stealth games.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 9-10)

everynowandben

Remnant: From the Ashes on Xbox - my buddies and I decided to give this one a go. It's pretty okay so far.

Bulletstorm on PS4 - playing the Duke Nukem version. So stupid, yet so awesome.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein on PC - still forcing myself through this.

Vestaria Saga on PC - this is a long game and I'll probably be chipping away at it level by level for a good while

Kirby and the Forgotten Land on Switch - Almost done with this one. Just straight up fun to play.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (April 2-3)

everynowandben

Dishonored 2 on PC - absolutely loving this. Just got to chapter 7, and got the new item and I am VERY excited to see what they do with it.

Vestaria Saga on PC - 99.9% Fire Emblem made by the guy who created Fire Emblem. Graphics are bad, but everyrthing else had been great so far. Only on Chapter 3 but this is classic FE and I'm really enjoying it.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein on PC - I want to love this, but I just don't. The enemy AI are all god-tier psychics who can apparently see through walls and have perfect aim from 10 miles away. I also hate all of the guns. After putting it down for a while, I'm save-scumming my way through to completion.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land on Switch - Truly a delight. This game is a ton of fun.

Re: Talking Point: How Often Do You Play Backwards Compatible Games On Xbox?

everynowandben

Depending on how you count it (Do remasters of old games count? Are we talking any system/console or just Xbox? Where is the generation line for PC? What about "new" games that are actually full conversions of old games?), I've played somewhere between 35 and 55 games and DLCs from generations prior to Xbox One/PS4 in the last 12 months. So, very often?

Re: Soapbox: FPS Boost Is The Most Underrated Xbox Series X|S Feature

everynowandben

FPS boost is the best feature on Xbox.

30 to 60 fps is a massive jump. It's hard for me to believe that people can't tell the difference. Do people's eyes have different refresh rates? Honest question. Even if you couldn't see it, you should be able to feel the difference in response time. Going from 60 to 120 fps also looks and feels significantly better.

Lower fps, by definition, means more blur (or choppiness) in motion, so unless you're playing a visual novel, frames are more important than resolution in my opinion.

Re: Talking Point: How Many Games Have You Bought In 2022 So Far?

everynowandben

I haven't purchased too many new games, still trying to clear out the backlog - somewhat successfully - since 2020. So far this year I bought:

Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut
Horizon Forbidden West
Pokemon Legends Arceus
Returnal
Spider-Man MM Ultimate Edition

Just some exclusives, really. Everything else I've played has been on Game Pass. Or old games I bought a long time ago.

Re: Talking Point: What Are You Playing This Weekend? (February 12-13)

everynowandben

Dived back into Sea of Thieves with the guys last night as we found Back 4 Blood remains fun drainingly difficult even after the new patch.

Still chipping away at Return to Castle Wolfenstein on PC. Think I'm going to look for a source port or some kind of fix since the vanilla version is giving me some issues with frame rate, saving, loading, enemy AI, controls/control options, resolution... pretty much everything is not working quite as it should.