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So far, this year has been very Pokémon-centric. I've played Pokémon Shining Pearl, Pokémon Shield and Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and it's funny how three games released so close to each other can all be so different.

I played Pokémon Platinum a few years back, so it was great to revisit Shining Pearl and experience all the upgrades that came along with the remaster of that generation.

Pokémon Shield is one of the two games in the most recent generation of Pokémon. While enjoyable, it did feel a little too easy, and it did get frustrating that everytime something more dramatic happened in the story, you're told to just focus on your gym challenge because you're just a kid. Surely we should be present for the more dramatic moments of the story, rather than them happening off-screen for most of the game until they finally let you get involved in the drama. I will say that I'm currently still enjoying the DLC for this one though.

This brings me to Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and honestly... wow. It's an entirely different take on Pokémon and I loved it. The open world is reminiscent of Breath of the Wild, and I loved that game so it makes sense that I would love this game. The immersion is increased with this approach, and there's definitely a noticeable progression in terms of difficulty and in terms of how rare the Pokémon are the further you get into it. It's also nice to actually see Pokémon walking around in the open and act differently around you depending on their nature (a feature that was present in all three of the above games, but Legends: Arceus is the pinnacle of the three in this regard). Whilst I'm not necessarily sure I want every Pokémon game to be like this from now on, I've spent hours on this game and loved every second, and I think I would enjoy it if they made more games like this on the side of the main series entries.

I also can't finish this post without mentioning other games I'm playing lately, all zombie-related. I've recently started Dying Light 2, I've been playing Back4Blood on and off for a few months, and I've been dabbling with Mercenaries 3D for a little throwback fun.
 
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LOL, I agree Turo, we went too off topic, and sorry I quoted you as if you had made that statement (I edited it).

Anyway, back on topic, this doesn't have anything to do with Survival Horror, but the thread title doesn't say it has to be. I'm getting very close now to finishing up my goal of beating all available Halo games on PC on Legendary mode. I only have the last mission of Halo Reach, Pillar of Autumn, to go.

It's been an exhilarating experience, and while indeed challenging, it's not been as brutal as I thought it would be. There are ways here and there you can definitely make things easier, like equipping the Marine in the passenger seat of your Warthog with a powerful weapon, but there's also very tense moments.

I still think the original, Halo Combat Evolved, is the one I had to replay tough segments the most. In some cases that was my fault for not using the Plasma Pistol to strip shields of tougher enemies, which can result in your Marines getting killed, but there are also places that involve wave after wave of enemies, where it's hard by any means to keep your squad alive. Combat Evolved I think is considered by most for this reason to invariably have the most solo play.
 
@Frag Maniac That's okay, it happens. And don't worry, the general gaming section isn't limited strictly to survival horror games. Feel free to talk about any game.

But that's pretty weird, I think Combat Evolved is actually the easiest game in Legendary. I think with Halo: Reach, it became sort of a trend to make Halo games really difficult on Legendary, mainly because of how tough they started making Elites and Hunters in the later games and with Halo 4, the Promethean Knights were bullet sponges and would unfairly teleport. Then Halo 5 had all those damn Warden and Hunter boss fights. Though Halo 2 easily takes the cake for hardest Legendary difficulty for forcing Iron. At least with the other games, all you have to do is play more strategically and make sure you use every weapon on the battlefield. But outside of The Library, Halo: CE is a pretty fair experience even on Legendary.

But as far as the year goes, I had been playing a lot of Castle Crashers on Switch because my nephew was getting REALLY into it. Luckily got him off of that though because he was getting really out of hand with it. I also revisited Sonic Forces and while a lot of my criticisms of that game still hold true, I did enjoy it a lot more going for a completionist run. I also played through Mario Sunshine from the 3D All-Stars collection on Switch. I beat it on Gamecube before but never 100% it, so I went for all the Shine Sprites. I still love Mario Sunshine, but some these levels man... WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!? Regardless, I had a great time with it overall.

Then I played Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and absolutely loved it. It took some time to get accustomed, but it's easily my favorite Star Wars game for how it brilliantly pulls from so many great influences and ties itself to the main Star Wars canon in such amazing ways. Just wish there were more objects and items you could move with the force like in Control. Definitely looking forward to the sequel though.

I also finally got around to playing the Ghostbusters Video Game. I had hunted it down for the 360 shortly before it was remastered, which kinda annoyed me, but I still played the remaster anyway and honestly, I'm not the biggest Ghostbusters fan, but as far as licensed games go, this one was actually really good. The only things I would consider an improvement would be if the game had an open world so you can drive the Ecto-1 from location to location and you actually got to play as one of the Ghostbusters instead of a generic rookie character. Even 4 player co-op would have been great, but I think that's increasing the scope too much for an IP like this, but other than that, they nailed it.

I've since recently finished the Revelations games on Switch. I think the Switch version of Revelations 1 is easily the definitive version of the game for its implementation of touch and motion controls, making it a complete package of sorts as it takes back what it lost from the 3DS while keeping everything that made the console version better. Revelations 2 is still massively underrated, and playing it in handheld mode on the Switch with gyro aiming is quite a cool novelty even if it is technically inferior to the other console versions.

Meanwhile, I've been playing a lot of Gears 5 and Super Mario Maker 2 while playing through Saint's Row: The Third Remastered which has been a little disappointing. What they've done with the graphics looks great, but the lighting is terrible. I don't remember having many issues with the original, but apparently the game had gotten rid of the day and night cycle with the time of day changing everytime you're loaded into the world after a mission, activity, or death and I feel like I've spent the majority of my playthrough in the night which looks terrible with how pitch black everything looks with only pockets of lights illuminating from street lights and other sources. There's also been tons of glitches I haven't really seen anyone mention which I don't recall being present in the original either.

Super Mario Maker 2 on the other hand really caught me by surprise. I played it a couple of years ago and never went back to it until this year. I saw my nephew was spending a lot of time with it, which inspired me to start playing so I can create levels for him to play and I've just been completely sucked into it. Seriously, an hour goes by like 10 minutes when you're creating in this game. My goal is to create 8 Worlds worth of levels and I've been surprising myself with how many creative levels I've come up with. I don't try to do anything too insane, difficult, or tricky and just really want the levels to flow as if it were an original game with fair levels and variety. Been having him play test them too so I can modify certain things that may have been unfair or impossible to bypass.

And that's pretty much all I've been playing this year so far. Really want to start cracking down on my backlog though.
 
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I don't believe it took me that long, but I'm finally playing The Witcher 3 and...damn, what an amazing game! It took me a bit to get used to the combat, but once I did, everything clicked. The game is so robust, there's so much lore and care put into the game, its story and its characters (and of course, its world) that it's hard to not be impressed. It's been a real while since I got that "Just one more "?" point to search" or "just one more quest" and when you look at the clock, two hours passed. I've never played the first two, or read the books (or watched the TV series), but I don't feel particularly lost or anything, which I'm glad for.

Also, Gwent is so cool. Reminded me of how much I loved playing Triple Triad back in the Final Fantasy VIII days. I'm still in Velen, but I'm enjoying it so much. I'm glad I finally sat down to play this one.

On the side, I've been playing some KOF XV, but SNK still didn't fixed the damn matchmaking, so I get kinda bored by have to wait so much for a match.
 
Steam Racing Fest is in full swing! I'm gonna have a field day here, I think I'll start with RiMS Racing and carefully pick one or two more. Been a looooong time since I had a blast with racing simulators with realistic customizable and tunable parts. What costs thousands of USD's in real life costs nothing in a racing game. (y)
 
Turo602 said:
@Frag Maniac That's okay, it happens. And don't worry, the general gaming section isn't limited strictly to survival horror games. Feel free to talk about any game.

But that's pretty weird, I think Combat Evolved is actually the easiest game in Legendary. I think with Halo: Reach, it became sort of a trend to make Halo games really difficult on Legendary, mainly because of how tough they started making Elites and Hunters in the later games and with Halo 4, the Promethean Knights were bullet sponges and would unfairly teleport. Then Halo 5 had all those damn Warden and Hunter boss fights. Though Halo 2 easily takes the cake for hardest Legendary difficulty for forcing Iron. At least with the other games, all you have to do is play more strategically and make sure you use every weapon on the battlefield. But outside of The Library, Halo: CE is a pretty fair experience even on Legendary.

But as far as the year goes, I had been playing a lot of Castle Crashers on Switch because my nephew was getting REALLY into it. Luckily got him off of that though because he was getting really out of hand with it. I also revisited Sonic Forces and while a lot of my criticisms of that game still hold true, I did enjoy it a lot more going for a completionist run. I also played through Mario Sunshine from the 3D All-Stars collection on Switch. I beat it on Gamecube before but never 100% it, so I went for all the Shine Sprites. I still love Mario Sunshine, but some these levels man... WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!? Regardless, I had a great time with it overall.

Then I played Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and absolutely loved it. It took some time to get accustomed, but it's easily my favorite Star Wars game for how it brilliantly pulls from so many great influences and ties itself to the main Star Wars canon in such amazing ways. Just wish there were more objects and items you could move with the force like in Control. Definitely looking forward to the sequel though.

I also finally got around to playing the Ghostbusters Video Game. I had hunted it down for the 360 shortly before it was remastered, which kinda annoyed me, but I still played the remaster anyway and honestly, I'm not the biggest Ghostbusters fan, but as far as licensed games go, this one was actually really good. The only things I would consider an improvement would be if the game had an open world so you can drive the Ecto-1 from location to location and you actually got to play as one of the Ghostbusters instead of a generic rookie character. Even 4 player co-op would have been great, but I think that's increasing the scope too much for an IP like this, but other than that, they nailed it.

I've since recently finished the Revelations games on Switch. I think the Switch version of Revelations 1 is easily the definitive version of the game for its implementation of touch and motion controls, making it a complete package of sorts as it takes back what it lost from the 3DS while keeping everything that made the console version better. Revelations 2 is still massively underrated, and playing it in handheld mode on the Switch with gyro aiming is quite a cool novelty even if it is technically inferior to the other console versions.

Meanwhile, I've been playing a lot of Gears 5 and Super Mario Maker 2 while playing through Saint's Row: The Third Remastered which has been a little disappointing. What they've done with the graphics looks great, but the lighting is terrible. I don't remember having many issues with the original, but apparently the game had gotten rid of the day and night cycle with the time of day changing everytime you're loaded into the world after a mission, activity, or death and I feel like I've spent the majority of my playthrough in the night which looks terrible with how pitch black everything looks with only pockets of lights illuminating from street lights and other sources. There's also been tons of glitches I haven't really seen anyone mention which I don't recall being present in the original either.

Super Mario Maker 2 on the other hand really caught me by surprise. I played it a couple of years ago and never went back to it until this year. I saw my nephew was spending a lot of time with it, which inspired me to start playing so I can create levels for him to play and I've just been completely sucked into it. Seriously, an hour goes by like 10 minutes when you're creating in this game. My goal is to create 8 Worlds worth of levels and I've been surprising myself with how many creative levels I've come up with. I don't try to do anything too insane, difficult, or tricky and just really want the levels to flow as if it were an original game with fair levels and variety. Been having him play test them too so I can modify certain things that may have been unfair or impossible to bypass.

And that's pretty much all I've been playing this year so far. Really want to start cracking down on my backlog though.
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Interesting take on which Halos are hardest. It seems there's always quite a difference of opinions on that, even among the die hard Halo fans. I had the same initial reaction to Halo 2 and Reach, but they really aren't that hard, even on Legendary. There's tons of Arbiter missions in 2, which let's face it, allows you to sneak a lot. Granted the part where you're racing through tons of Flood and Covenant in the muck can be challenging, but not too bad with a few snipes and pacing to recover. Some of the vehicle sections can be tough, even with the Scorpion, but in that part where there's enemies on turrets and Wraiths and Ghosts, I just whiz into the door in a Ghost to get past them.

In Reach you have Noble squad, whom are invincible, and even when you're just with1 of them, they don't just play fight, they kill. When they can't manage to, they distract quite well, even Hunters. On my last play through on Heroic, the end seemed hard. This time on legendary it seemed easy by comparison. Even the part where you face 3 Ultra Elites, one by himself, then 2 right after, you should be carrying a Fuel Rod gun for the two Hunters anyway, with plenty of ammo. Two shots each to the upper torso, then a DRM round to the head takes them out quick, the lower floor being an ideal place to duck under in between. I ran out of fuel rod ammo on the 2nd Hunter, but Emile was distracting it so well, I easily finished it off with 2 shotgun rounds to the back.

And the very final area is no different in Reach, you have lots of good weapons to use, including more Fuel Rod guns, and a UNSC sniper rifle. In the mission where you take out the huge guns, they are easily destroyed from a distance by various means.

In Combat Evolved though, the Library is only hard when you don't pace yourself and make use of weapons well. What's harder is that mission where you start at night with a sniper rifle. My squad usually gets wiped out, leaving me to battle the 2 Hunters before boarding the Covenant ship by myself. You get more Marines when you board the ship, but you're immediately thrust into a battle that has several waves of cloaked Elite Ultras whom have Energy Swords. Whether you use the available cloak in that area right away, or save it, the battle finishes with 2 Hunters.

I guess the reason there's so many varying opinions on which Halo is hardest or best is because you can play them so many ways, and there is a lot to know regarding how to make them easier to play. When you spoke about the Knights teleporting in Halo 4, you reminded me of Hokiebird, whom does legendary guides on all Halo games. He said the same thing, yet thinks Halo 4 is boring. I agreed with him on 1 of his nit picks on 4, the Boltshot is useless. I however told him the reason he was complaining about running out of Lightrifle ammo toward the end of the final mission was more due to him spamming (and often missing) Lightrifle shots, vs using the Autosentry he had to assist.

Like I said, I've played all Halo games that are available on PC, and once I got to know them better and how to play them more effectively (without shortcuts, glitches, grenade jumps, etc) I grew to realize I liked them all. I'd have to say I got the most fun out of Halo Infinite's campaign though. It truly is the benchmark for being able to play anyway you want. From using all upgrades and being able to do a Batman/Superman-like shock punch with the fully upgraded Grappleshot, to going bare bones like I did on my Legendary run with no upgrades using Grapple only, it's really a great feeling game to play. I enjoyed it so much it's the only Halo game I was inspired to make a full video guide on.

BTW, I played Fallen Order, Ghostbusters and Gears 5 too, all great games IMO. Speaking of licensed games, I wish like heck they'd make another Matrix game, but this time better. I was psyched at first when I saw Epic's Matrix demo, but then I realized it was just hype for UE 5.
 
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Playing Ride 4, and y'all get a taste of how awesome I am at motorcycle racing games:

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Frag Maniac said:
BTW, do you ever play any of the Supercross games?
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No, never, I am getting a bit tired of Steam though, every other game is some kind of weird weaboo sex simulator these days. There's even one called "Furry Hitler" ffs. Epic Games store looking more and more attractive by the day, Bioshock Collection is now free(!) and Final Fantasy VII remake is on there as well. Hmmm...
 
After completing my goal of beating all Halo games available on PC on Legendary, I decided to reinstall Days Gone and try playing it on Survival II with no skill upgrades. As a matter of fact, I've also not upgraded the bike at all, nor have I upgraded Stamina, Health, or Focus. The only upgrade I have used is the oil can silencers, but I've avoided extended magazine upgrades. I'm also playing without sleeping to reset to day, which is the norm for me now.

I plan to do one more play though without using silencers after finishing this run. I have to say, these changes make the game as perilous and immersive as I'd hoped the hardest mode would be. Several times I've been knocked off the bike by Freaks, killed by Wolf packs, and also killed by Runners chasing me down. I'm getting better at fending off Runners by how I ride the bike though. The trick is to steer into them before they get close and bite you.

For about the first 1/4 to 1/3 the game, it's hard not to feel overwhelmed at times, especially on foot. To deal with Freaks and Human enemies I resorted to hiding in bushes and luring them with rock throws for sneak kills. I'd have to say though, next time I may stick with Boozer's shotgun until I can buy a level 2 shotgun at one of the camps. The Repeater is OK if your shots are very accurate, but horrible when you get rushed.

For most encounters for some time now I've been forgoing the silencer to practice for my next 100% no upgrades run, so I'm fairly confident I can manage it. The hardest part will no doubt be the first part of the game. I now have the Liberator shotgun and MG 45, and just got to the Militia camp. I ended up finding a relatively easy way to kill the Breaker in Playing All Night, the mission that first introduces you to them. I just stayed near the duck under rock, and kept escaping through it when he got close, head shotting him in between with the Crossbow. I did this until I figured luring him toward the explosives crates would finish him off. I also took out the one at the Nero station you pass through on that mission after backtracking to it though, as it has explosives barrels you can use.

Another fight I had an epiphany on was the knife fight against Carlos (Jessie). For many play throughs I was making the mistake of dodging his attacks too much. This uses more full body movement though and just depletes your stamina quicker. I found if you just do a 5th knife slash instead, it causes Carlos instead to get stamina drained, and sets him up for another flurry of slashes. It's really just a simple matter of rinse and repeat 5-slash flurries, and it's over pretty quick, usually with no damage taken.

Hordes though, I've yet to conquer even the smallest ones. So the few that are contained within the campaign as necessary missions to progress is my only worry now. I'm thinking I'm going to have to take them in chunks, using the bike stashed nearby to escape. With no stamina upgrades, you don't stand a chance trying to evade them on foot. I doubt if a stealth approach would work well either, though, as always, I'll start with that, and see how long I can make it last.
 
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Wow that's what I call dedication! I can't imagine restricting my character build in days gone, the tedium would drive me nuts. I'm playing on Hard and I only managed to take down one horde so far but only because I had a few grenades on hand and tossed them perfectly.
 
Gun Powder B said:
Wow that's what I call dedication! I can't imagine restricting my character build in days gone, the tedium would drive me nuts. I'm playing on Hard and I only managed to take down one horde so far but only because I had a few grenades on hand and tossed them perfectly.
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The best I've done on Hordes so far is to chip away at the one near the very first Nero camp you unlock to get Boozer sterile bandages. At day they all hole up in a small shack just down the hill from there. I decided night was better, because at night they congregate near the water's edge, which is closer to the Nero station. I just went halfway down the hill, laid down a proximity mine on the step level I was at, tossed an attractor and a few each pipe bombs and Molotovs, then retreated to the Nero camp. If done just right you have just enough time and stamina to get inside the Nero station without them tracking you down. You can usually only count on about a few dozen kills per attempt (more like double that if you can manage to get in 2 volleys of 3 each). This is how I got the last trust points required to get level 3 gear at both Hot Springs and Iron Mike's camps. It was really just the very last bit though, before then I was taking on Freaks, Wolves, Bears, and Runners for Bounties and Food points.

Before trying that horde near the Nero station, which I'm pretty sure is one of the smallest in the game, I tired something in Sherman Camp I thought sure would work. The horde there was holed up in a building pretty much diagonally across from the building you get the Liston Knife for Addy. Since that building also has a fire escape ladder access, and is locked at the door, I figured it would be a safe spot to take them on from. I first laid down a remote bomb near the wall behind the building, then spaced out 3 proximity explosives in the fire escape alleyway. I then went close enough to toss a Molotov, then ran to the fire escape ladder. It seemed to be going swimmingly, as it was easy to lure them to specific spots to set off each explosive just by where I stood.

I then stood at the very edge of the fire escape ladder so I could heave all my throwable incendiaries and ex[plosives without them landing on the fire escape. This started creating a massive pile of Freak corpses, but also made it a bit hard to see where the still live ones were. I started worrying at that point the corpses were somewhat limiting the firepower of the throwables, as they seemed to absorb much of the blast. Despite this, either due to kills amassing, or more likely, the still live horde members swarming, the mass swelled so high the Molotov flames were now licking through the fire escape grate. I had to move now and then to avoid damage because of it, and at a few points, Freaks somehow appeared ON the grate, either by no-clipping through it, or climbing over it (the former I think).

So ultimately, after many retries via reloading a quick save at my gas station parked bike, I concluded that this method was not going to work. It just takes too much heavy ammo, even for this relatively small horde, and there's no chance of chipping away, as the only door exit dumps you straight out into the fray. I suppose I could have tried tossing a distraction device in the street in front of the building, but since the only place you can do that from is the fire escape where you're by then in plain view of them, I doubt it would have worked.

At any rate, as silly as it sounds, this to me is the essence of true survival horror, when you have to think outside the box to do things that are otherwise pretty simple with all the skill and other upgrades.

Here's that quick kill knife method I spoke of. With this technique, it can easily be done in a little over a minute.

 
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yeah i love doing weapon and item restriction runs in Resident Evil, because those games are mostly not open world, and everything feels more 'hand placed' so to speak, but large wide open massive games like Days Gone motivates the hell out of me to upgrade and customize my bike and 'Get better" so I can tackle the wilderness expanses better and get more creative in survival techniques. going 'raw" in that game would feel like a chore!
 
Gun Powder B said:
yeah i love doing weapon and item restriction runs in Resident Evil, because those games are mostly not open world, and everything feels more 'hand placed' so to speak, but large wide open massive games like Days Gone motivates the hell out of me to upgrade and customize my bike and 'Get better" so I can tackle the wilderness expanses better and get more creative in survival techniques. going 'raw" in that game would feel like a chore!
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Yeah it really is those open world random encounters that are hard to strategize, because they often come at you when you're away from things you can climb to safety on. I have found though that some houses work well against animals. The hordes are the real conundrum though, it doesn't get more raw than being faced with a huge mass of Freaks and only having stock everything. Talk about an oh crap moment!
 
Finished Life is Strange: True Colors a couple of days ago. I've played all of the other games in the series but it's really just the first one that I enjoy. This one was actually better than I expected, but the game still suffers from flat and uninteresting characters, lack of impactful choices, lack of diverse locations, as well as a disappointingly short length. I also found the powers of the protagonist Alex Chen to be quite underwhelming compared to previous games, and it didn't feel like they utilized her powers to the fullest. Most of what happens in the game could actually be solved by just simply talking to the person - no supernatural powers needed. The dialogue is still cringy, but unfortunately they've removed stereotypes from the game which makes every character seem like they have the same personalities. I guess they did this to avoid any kind of stereotyping that could be seen as offensive. I don't like that. Part of why the first game is so good is because you have bratty rich characters acting arrogant, stoner characters acting high, etc. It's not offensive, it's FUN! If you remove all of that you remove what makes us humans.

However, I did enjoy a few parts of the game, which makes it a better game than both Life is Strange 2 and Life is Strange: Before the Storm, in my opinion. Because those games were utter trash. Alex the protagonist is actually a quite interesting and likeable character, it's just a shame that her powers are so weak and limited to the point of coming off as pointless.
 
I made a mistake and started FFX Remastered on my downstairs TV and Star Ocean: The Last Hope upstairs, so now I am stuck playing two seperate 60+ hour jrps. haha.

I am enjoying it, but it still feels like a chore, especially when I have put over 200 hours in to Final Fantasy X when it was new and I have played every Star Ocean a few times. Cannot wait to finish one and have a nice, breezy game to play when my wife wants to watch her own shows.
 
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