ImmaculateClump

Mechanical Star Astra itch.io page is up - https://boghog.itch.io/mechstarastra

Been champing at the bit to try this, demo coming next month!

Thought I'd made it to the final boss in Crisis Wing last night but turns out there's another stage. Man, it's trickier than it looks, one of those games where fully powered up, nowts the bother, but if you lose your powerups, you're flying by the seat of your pants until you get them back! It gets really tense!

Host

Jesus, this is utterly relentless once it gets going! Really tense. Good use of the narrow angle lenses on laptops and phones to make everything feel too close and claustrophobic.
I'm soft as shite, but I reckon most people will be clutching their faces or chewing their sleeves wet watching this.
Jump on it if you fancy shitting yourself, it's only an hour long.

****

12 minutes ago, Qazimod said:

It looks a lot like the system used by Velocity on PSP  

Yeah, I've seen it a fair few times, a couple of Astro Port games instantly sprang to mind, Witch Bot Meglilo and Zangeki Warp.

35 minutes ago, englishbob said:

or even how much it will be on PS4

It's on the Japanese store for 2,680 yen, so 20 quid might be a fair guess.

The game was originally released in 2013 on the 360.

Alone

Great fun. It won't win any prizes for originality but it's a very solid, stripped down and straight to the point genre flick.

Not a lot of dialogue, there's nothing in there that doesn't need to be. It's pretty well made.

I would maybe have recast the woman. She's one of those people who are quite self conscious because they're so attractive and are used to being looked at in their daily lives.
For a film called "alone", they needed someone who danced acted like nobody was watching.

She pulled it out of the bag later on when it was all kicking off, to be fair, not too convincing during the everyday bits at the beginning where she had to be more naturalistic and a few other moments, but it didn't seem to matter. The guy was decent, creepily polite at first and kept it believably restrained later on.

***

Glad to hear it! It's one of the games I missed out on on the 360 for some reason and I've been really looking forward to finally diving in.
Natsuki Chronicles coming in the Autumn too, PC and PS4.

Crisis Wing is out.

It's a nice change of pace. Plays like a gentle memoriser. Reminds me of truxton or a little bit like a heavily sedated cho ren sha.

Having fun slowly pushing further. The game loops when it's over and keeps getting harder like CRS too which I'm looking forward to.

It looks lovely.

To be honest, it could do with a little kick up the arse. This first loop needed to be more exciting. Faster or more enemies, or a more interesting scoring mechanic might have helped.

Enjoying myself though. It's a nice game to wind down with.

Even at 144hz with the framerate uncapped (framerate isn't locked to 60 like in most other shmups), the input lag is pretty noticeable.
You can live with it but it knocks your confidence a bit, you don't feel directly wired in and fully in control of the spaceship like you do in other games.

You'll find yourself macro dodging rather than risking nipping in between the tight bullet formations so much.

Aleste Branch gameplay trailer.

Qute's Ginga Force coming on the 24th to PC and PS4.

8 minutes ago, Marlew said:

It's an aggregate of a wide range of opinions. The overlap is the top ten list. 

Yeah, that's the problem with these things, the more people on the panel, the less interesting the results.

I'd rather see separate lists from the individual people.

Very vanilla, very predictable.

Even the "best of the rest" section is dull.

If you look at the panel, it's mostly critics and writers.

Will be keeping an eye out for Vlambeer's "Nuclear Throng". I must have missed that one.

The only game I really rate on that list is Slay The Spire, and even then, it shouldn't be on that list.

It's good, but one of the best games of the last 12 years? Nah.

Having said all that, my top ten list would be so wrong that I'd probably end up disagreeing with it myself.

There, I've commented on a click bait list article on the internet. Who knows what the rest of the day might bring!

27 minutes ago, Alan Stock said:

I'm doing stuff now I never would have dared.

Yeah man, I got that so often in the first game.
I'd feel like I'd plateaued, I'd get to a place where I was comfortable and felt safe and would start going for the best score I could within the confines of my current ability, but then I'd get braver and push myself that little bit further and experiment and take a few more chances and it all adds up and one day you're a GOD AMONG MEN!

It's been great reading everyone's impressions. Thank you for using spoiler tags! It's taken all my self-restraint not to unhide them.

Noffing for me. Not yet. I only upgrade when I absolutely have to. I can play all my games just fine right now.

New console hardware is a pain the arse rather than something to look forward to for me.
The excitement around new PC GPU's, I find even more baffling.

That's the boring truth of it.
Not gonna spit in the jelly, it's genuinely lovely seeing people happy and looking forward to stuff, especially right now! It's been fun seeing the hustle and bustle over the last few days.

but that's where I'm at and if there are other people here feeling the same, you're not alone

I like 1080p, I don't feel the need to push a higher res than that, when I do play the odd game that is a bit more demanding than the stuff I usually play, my pc is still sexy enough to run it at a higher framerate than I need. I'm golden. I've no complaints, no urge for more power.

The sort of carrots they're dangling as incentive to upgrade don't excite me at all.
If spelunky 2 had been a 2 year PS5 exclusive I'd have whipped out my wallet, or if Aleste Branch or something like that was announced as only coming to the new xbox.
It'd have to be something I really, really wanted to play and definitely couldn't get anywhere else and was definitely not coming to PC.

Rent A Pal

Great fun. Has a pitch perfect tone where the gentle gallows humour serves to elevate the more serious moments and make them more harrowing, rather than making you feel detached or like it's being disrespectful of the subject matter.

Rides the line perfectly. Made with confidence, it's such a perfectly paced, enjoyable ride. Had a smile on my face all the way through.

****

Strike Buster Prototype

ULTRAKILL is out in early access now, if you missed it.

Yeah man, do what you like!

I think I use arcade stick the most, then 360 pad, then mouse and keyboard.

I will say that it's good to get proficient with all different types of input devices so that you can use the right tool for the job.

There are some games that really sing on mouse and keyboard and some games that are straight up unplayable on anything else.

Doesn't matter though, pc gaming is all about options. Don't worry about it. If you're having fun, you're doing it right!

48 minutes ago, Marlew said:

To be honest, I'm curious about tellies re: The Next Gen (of consoles)

K, boss.

Shine the spod-light if you need any graphs done.

Jesus Christ, I thought you were ghosting me! Don't do that again.

13 minutes ago, Marlew said:

I don't even own a working computer, don't worry about it.

They took that once you ended up on that database, eh?

You wanting spod results or not? Do I put 1080p telly or nuffing?

I'm a lag queen, I use a monitor, but it's 1080p if that's what you're looking for.

Should I put 1080p telly?

Here's the display resolution results from the latest steam survey (August 2020) if that's any good to you.

Oh shit. That cat is the cutest thing ever!

Haha, I'll have to remember to record my first run for posterity. I imagine it'll be like that, I'll be too busy taking in the wonderful sights to concentrate properly.

Yeah, you need to be a total chilled hippy type to get on with this game, I think. If you're not someone who can laugh at themselves or is prepared to learn through failure, you've fallen at the first hurdle.

There's been a couple of people I've tried to sell it on and it just made them angry.
I calmly and at length explained why all their criticisms were wrong as well which might not have helped
People just want you to agree with them when they're venting. Nod your head and stroke their backs sympathetically.

It's objectively the best game ever made. If anyone doesn't like it, it's because they haven't played it enough. Every criticism I've ever heard is just teething pains.

That ghost pot, I imagine you'd carry it to the end of the level before setting it off so you can get the juicy diamond before legging it, or like someone else said, there'll be a secret attached that we have to figure out

5 hours ago, GamesGamesGames said:

Really wish this had come out a couple of years back

Why's that, man? You got more shit to do now? You'll always find time, stay up an extra hour

NNNNNnnnnngggg. Fuck it, I'm gonna watch that, then I'm going dark.

Enjoy yourselves you spawny gets! See you on the other side.

35 minutes ago, Harsin said:

Who's the poster who apparently believes that the drive model will be £299 and the digital will  be £50 cheaper again?

That guy sounds like a right idiot.

Is it too late to change my vote?

Internal Blu Ray drive is about 50 quid innit if they're buying them in bulk? So I can't see the driveless systems price being all that different.

I suppose there's a pandemic on so it'll all cost more, and I don't really know what sort of things they've got in there. Wires and stuff, innit?

£399 then, Bruce. Is that more likely?

£299, Bruce.

3 hours ago, thesnwmn said:

We’re the Battenbergs forming the steps to the final flag eaten before the photo?

That's a bit too philosophical for me at this early hour. The pubs haven't even opened yet!

50 minutes ago, Wizcat said:

(My lack of Playstation ownership not a factor at all, and I'm totally not jealous. Honest)

I've decided to just hold off since it's only a couple of weeks. I can't really justify buying the PS4 version since I'd never touch it again once it came to PC.
 

It'll sell on word of mouth alone, I'd imagine. No need to spend any money, just make sure you have a decent trailer and play the long game like they did first time round, let the passion of the playerbase spread the good word and let the game grow and grow.

I play games where there are like ten people on the leaderboard or something, so it's hard to judge for me. Spelunky looks hugely popular to me, but I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it must still be quite a niche, small game.

It feels like they've got the core nailed. Feels fun to drive and drift, it's smooth and feels fast enough, but it's everything else that lets it down.

It's just so conservative, I want to be flying off ramps and driving up walls but the tracks are just so dull. Like somebody else said, not even enough opportunities to get your drift on. The vehicles, the characters, it's all so wet. They needed to go crazy and have fun with everything but they've just played it far too safe.

Normal and hard feel too easy straight off the bat, and it doesn't feel like I'm quite ready for expert mode so there's no porridge that's just right.

I'll stick with it, but I can't see it having much staying power. Not fun enough to make up for it's lack of personality.

One thing I love is that it's very respectful of your time. Zero loading times, and you can just hammer the A button through everything.

You can't force high refresh rates in fullscreen mode, you need to run it borderless windowed with vsync off. The framerate is uncapped and at 144hz feels really smooth.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Spelunky_2&type=revision&diff=996863&oldid=996168

Dev from Blitworks has updated the pcgamingwiki page, looks like the framerate won't be capped at 60fps this time round.
Really good news! Spelunky was a bit funky at high refresh rates, you'd have to force 60hz or you'd get awful framepacing issues.
Bonus that we'll be able to play at nice high refresh rates and framerates. Smoother motion and lower input lag is always welcome in a game like this.

Steam cloud will be enabled this time round as well.