What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2025?

Replaying Darksiders 1 Warmastered Edition here. Pure comfort food, and
I still enjoy it. Learning new keystroke combos for new weapon moves is fun too

rms

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On Mon, 01 Sep 2025 11:44:36 -0400, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

So, that's what kept me busy this month. How about you? Tell us; we
need to know.

What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2025?

YES, Master. I shall do thy bidding. (*Darth Vader noise*)

I actually played a lot of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc this month.
My daughter did Let's Plays of the two sequels (2 and V3) for me over the summer break and I got into the characters and themes. It's all aimed at
14-yo boys but, what the hell, it's still fun.

In return, I did a Let's Play of the original for her before she left for college. We did full commentary and jokes, though we didn't upload any of
it. It was a private performance. Our best bit, inspired by the second
chapter, was that Kyoko, the Ultimate Detective, developed an obsession
with determining the sex of everyone she met ("Sexing them"). We'd joke
about giving her a pickle jar of drosophila to get her to shut up. Gung'f orpnhfr fur varkcyvpnoyl purpxf bhg gur pebgpu bs gur qrnq obql va gur
frpbaq pnfr naq vf gur bayl bar jub xabjf gur ivpgvz jnf n pebff-qerffre.

(I don't think anyone minds being spoiled, but I ROT13ed JIC)

Now I'm a completionist. So even after she left for school, I've
continued playing. Gotta get max skill points/all skills and see how it
plays! I don't think I'll finish the Bonus mode. I'm just using it to get
all the free-time events, all the skill points, and all the skills. Now
I'm replaying with Japanese voiceovers, which I passingly understand.

I also played the remaster of Sam & Max: Season one (Sam & Max "Save the World"). I'm at the White House rn, and it's uncanny what's happening in
the game compared to today's *actual* White House. Scary, in fact.

It's not a very good point-and-click adventure. Each episode is
claustrophobic and it would have done better as an all-in-one game.

The newest feature in my home is I did an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X build at the beginning of the year "for the office," and my wife was still happy with
her 11-yo i5 desktop, so the old PC (an i9-9900K) got attached to the TV,
along with an old EVGA 1080GTX, and I bought a Bluetooth XBox controller
for the convenience.

The mouse sits on the arm of the sofa set at ultra-twitchy speed. Not
great for gaming but it gets the job done. I won't be doing FPS.

Turns out, there are lots of PC games that are just more fun playing 10'
from a 55" screen, with a proper 5.1 soundbar. Stray is really good, for instance (which I also played briefly in August). And I figured out how
to stream anything with Ray Tracing from the office desktop. Steam Remote
Play leaves something to be desired in latency, but it was fine for the
Talos Principle Remastered with RTX. I discovered it is important not to
read from the frame buffer when you're streaming HDR to HDR, because then
HDR gets screwed up and it's all washed out.

Steam's "Big Screen" mode sucks however. Still. Glad I have mouse access.

So my Switch has been neglected. I'm running MAME on the PC as it is a
superior experience to the "Arcade Archives" titles (and other bundles) I bought for Switch. I will continue to buy arcade games for it to be
legal, but MAME is better in every way, and it has titles I don't have
access to like "Wizard of Wor" and "Gyruss." Not to mention all the other emulators I can run. Not to mention real cabinet artwork.

I'm only playing a Jupiter Picross game on Switch. Calms my nerves. I
once again dropped Breath of the Wild because it just gets boring. I want
my old style of Zelda back, with the puzzles and the silly tools. Open
Zelda sucks, even though it's a hand developed world. Too much rinse,
repeat.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'll put down the coconuts and
string now.

--
Zag

Give me the liberty to know, to think, to believe,
and to utter freely according to conscience, above
all other liberties. ~John Milton

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On 9/1/2025 8:44 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

* The Callisto Protocol

"Callisto

Protocol" was, I said, "Dead Space" with the serial numbers shaved
off

Speaking of...

In truth, I actually played one more game this month, probably
spending as much time with it as with the two I mentioned above. But
I'm not going to call out this third game by name, just because I
don't have anything new to say about it, and everybody else is
probably tired of me talking about it anyway (if you're a regular
here, you can probably guess which game I mean. If you need a hint,
all I'll say is that it involved driving heavy machinery).

Something about delivering things in a truck? :)

What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2025?

While I played a lot of games I didn't really play any of them much. I
seem to have this problem of late, all the games are boring me. Sure I
stumble across one once in awhile Like the last one of Cult of the Lamb,
but it's becoming more and more rare. Or they're too hard in the
combat. And I just think "Ugh, I don't want to play that." then I don't.

What I played

TD;LR:

*** Midnight Suns
*** En Guarde!
** The Surge
** Hive Jump 2 Survivors
** Walking Survival
* Ultimate Zombie Defense
**** Dungeon Robber
* Dracomation
** God of War: Ragnarok
** Dead Space (Remaster?)
***** Dark Souls 3.

---------

/Verbose

*** Midnight Suns

A freebee by Epic, You're some unheard of Marvel hero and you fight in
turned based card building battles against Hydra and your demon mom. So
this one has actual card building where once you get cards as loot you
can choose which cards you want in your deck of 8, for each of many many
marvel supers, which you can bring 2 with you who each have their own
deck of 8, and you get a number of random cards from the total pile of
24 cards, and fight in an arena. The fights are o.k. but they're turn
based and slow with tons of enemies, and a lot of maneuvering around
trying to knock-back enemies into each other or environmental hazards.
It feels like it gets very complicated with all the deck building and
this. Fights take a long time, and progress is very slow.

It's got a lot of various make work stuff collecting, crafting, and
o.k. interaction with the other supers, that takes up as much or more
time as the actual fights.

Story is o.k. I don't particularly like the voice actors or perhaps it's
the direction for either the male or female option. Both sound brain
damaged, with the personality of a wet towel. which while
understandable as you've been brought back from death after 300 years, I
still find incredibly annoying to have to listen to.

It's probably worth checking out if you're craving more Marvel, and can
stand turn based card building strategic tactical collecting and
crafting. Jesus. When I put it like that it just sounds like they
threw everything in this game. I'm not sure if I'll continue to play it
at this point, but probably not.


*** En Guarde!

Zorro like fencing, a bit silly, but fun. I'm at the last 3rd, but I've
found the fighting pretty difficult. You have to fend of I think as
many as 7 attackers at the same time, though really it's more like 3 at
the same time. You have to dodge or parry as appropriate by the
indicators with fast reactions to build up fatigue on an enemy about 3
times in a row to be able to damage them, only some can't even really be damaged if you do that and you have to do some appropriate other action
like kick an explosive down a stairway after also surprising them
somehow by like jumping off a flagpole, all while making sure you react
to other attacks. I almost couldn't manage this in the 2nd act, but in
the 3rd I've gotten to the point I'm not sure I can and put it down.
This is a game I feel like deserves to be finished though.


** The Surge

Souls meets something like Half-life (though no half-life) I finished
it. It actually got much easier near the end. I was also surprised
there was only 5 bosses. The levels were confusing and difficult enough
that they made it feel like a long game though. I was a bit
disappointed I never really found any weapons I felt were better than
the first couple I got. All you really need is an energy weapon for
robots (which took me a long time to get, and might be why the end was
easier) and something crushing for anything else. It's pretty much all
melee. I don't feel I can really recommend it, but it's only the 2nd souls-like I've finished besides Lies of P. It might be the way to go
if you always wondered about souls-likes but prefer a sci-fi setting.


** Hive Jump 2 Survivors

This is another Vampire Survivors clone, it's not bad, and certainly way
easier to understand. It's also sci-fi sort of like starship troopers,
you're in power armor and fight off tons of bugs. I did find the levels
to drag on a bit and actually started falling asleep a couple times,
after that is when I quit.


** Walking Survival

A recent freebie VS clone as well. Much simpler though, and feels like
a 'my first game' type thing. I beat it in only 2.3 hours. There's more unlocks, but I don't see the point. I enjoyed it. I'm not sure what's
going on with the reviews, It says there aren't any, but then if you go
there there's 233, far more negative than positive. I was going to
leave a positive one, but it's not immediately obvious how I do so or
even if I can, but I can't be bothered to investigate further.


* Ultimate Zombie Defense

Oof, this felt like a bad mobile game. I think there was monetization,
but I didn't investigate or play long enough. I think this was another freebee.


**** Dungeon Robber

Back to Dungeon Robber briefly, but I always just think I want to learn
how to program and make a clone I can fiddle with the rules with
instead. Maybe I'll learn how to do that someday, probably not though.


* Dracomation

Roguelike top down shooter, didn't find it particularly fun. Also a freebee


** God of War: Ragnarok

Playing on PS+ on the PS5. I didn't get very far, I think I was just
bored by more of the same as God of War. I wouldn't mind seeing the
story but advancing just feels a slog. Too many simple puzzles, I don't
really care much for the combat either.


** Dead Space (Remaster?)

My son bought this on the PS5. I assume it's the remaster after looking
at screenshots of both. I thought I'd give it another go since I
figured it wouldn't have the game breaking bug at the beginning like the original verson on the PC for me. Not bad so far, but then I got stuck
in the med bay where it looks like I need to find a fuse to progress and
I've been around the whole level umpteen times. I suppose I could look
it up, but I'm so tired of doing that, it just seems to turn me off
having to do that now.


***** Dark Souls 3.

I was thinking how much I missed DS3, so I decided to go back and play
with my newbie helper. I did so poorly when I was summoned and was
rarely summoned I gave up quickly. Now I'm thinking of returning to ER,
as I'm likely to be summoned more, but I'm also thinking people are
probably playing Nightreign more, and maybe I'm just getting too old for soulslikes/action.

--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'

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Same games as before. I don't recall playing SW:TOR last month.


Spalls Hurgenson <[email protected]> wrote:

Accept no imitations!
(Or do. It's no skin off my back either way).

Another month done, which means another opportunity to list the
video-games that have been keeping us busy. I didn't do too much
gaming this month, except near the end (and then I had to rush so I
could finish in time to write my 'reviews' ;-). Who knew that gaming
could be such a chore?

Anyway, let's get right into it.

Superbrief
---------------------------------------
* The Callisto Protocol
* The Last of Us Part II Remastered
*

Maximum Verbosity
---------------------------------------

* The Callisto Protocol
The last time I played "Callisto Protocol" --back in February 2024,
for those of you keeping track-- I compared it to a store-brand
product. You know, those generically-named goods that are, for all
intents and purposes, exactly like the name-brand (and often made in
the same factory) but lacking the recognizable branding. "Callisto
Protocol" was, I said, "Dead Space" with the serial numbers shaved
off; as good as its better known predecessor, even if it lacked in originality.

But having played the game a second time, I think I gave "Callisto
Protocol" too much credit. Yes, it is very recognizably a "Dead Space" clone... but only in the same way a copy-cat movie imitates its
predecessor. "Callisto Protocol" is to "Dead Space" as "Little Panda
Fighter" is to "Kung Fu Panda", or "Atlantic Rim" is to "Pacific Rim".
It's a shallow imitation that does its best to match its predecessor
beat for beat, but without the skill or understanding or what made
those older games such classics.

You can map pretty much everything in "Callisto Protocol" to "Dead
Space", even when it doesn't really make any sense for it to be in the
newer game. Forget the obvious stuff, like both games being
third-person sci-fi survival horror. It's all the little stuff too.
Weird snakes that pull you down the tunnel and you have to mash the
action button to escape. A telekinetic power to pick up items from
afar. Narrow tunnels you have to crawl through on your belly but you
never get attacked in. Vending machines that dispense weapons and
ammo. You can practically feel the developer check off items on a list
as you play this game. Was this experience in "Dead Space"? Better add
it to "Callisto Protocol" then!

It wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the game was well made or
interesting, but it's not. The story and characters are puerile and simplistic; the villains engaging in their evil deeds for little more
than LOLs (although there is, of course, a cult-like conspiracy behind
it all. "Dead Space" had one of those, after all, so "Callisto
Protocol" gotta have one too!). The level design is boring and linear;
half the fun of "Dead Space" was going back and forth through the
Ishimura, exploring the giant space ship. In that game, your growing familiarity with the vessel made it feel like a real location. In
"Callisto Protocol", you're constantly pushed forward to new
locations. Unfortunately, those new locations look almost exactly like
the place you just left. It's all industrial grunge; tech-gear mounted
on cave walls with the expected meat-moss growing off of that. There's nothing interesting to look at in "Callisto Protocol". The whole thing
feels so incredibly generic.

The game's major 'gimmick' (other than being a half-hearted "Dead
Space" clone, that is) is its combat, but this too is disappointing.
If "Dead Space" were all about dismemberment as the key to victory, "Callisto's" combat --much more melee focused-- revolves around
dodging. It's not very difficult to pull off a dodge (spamming keys
works well enough) but it's not very engaging. By the end, I found
just wailing away at the enemy and tanking the hits was as good a
strategy.

The scares in this game feel incredibly unearned. Not willing to take
the time to slowly introduce you to your environment, "Callisto"
throws you head-first into the action; ten minutes into the game and
the disaster is already in full-force. There's blood everywhere, and
the aliens are rampant. There's no time to absorb the atmosphere of destruction, and even if there was it wouldn't really matter because
you've no idea what the place was supposed to look like before it
became encrusted with alien matter. It doesn't help that every single
scare is so obviously telegraphed that even when monsters popped out
of the closets to jump-scare me, I didn't flinch.

On a technical front, the visuals are fine. The game was reputed to
have some incredibly high-fidelity and realistic graphics (especially
with regards to facial animations) but I didn't find the game any more impressive than most of its contemporaries. If anything, I found its
overuse of lighting effects (lens flares, shadows, fog) more annoying
than anything else. Its a game that seems fascinated with never
letting you get a clear view of anything.

"The Callisto Protocol" obviously had a team with solid technical
skills, but not one with any real vision (beyond, 'Let's ape "Dead
Space") or the ability to pace a story, or create engaging gameplay.
It's not a garbage game, but it failed to impress me throughout.

* The Last of Us Part II Remastered
It seems weird for me to say this, but I wish this game had _less_
story.

Weird, because I'm the one often complaining about how the writing in
games is usually only given a second thought (if that much); that
developers don't invest the same amount of care into the story, pacing
and characters of their games as they do the graphics and mechanics.
This definitely cannot be said about "The Last of Us Part 2". It has
an excellent story, well told. Unfortunately, it too often gets in the
way of, you know, playing the actual game.

Because as much as I love the story (and, more importantly for me, the world-building) in games, the medium has different demands on the
narrative than more traditional forms of fiction. For one thing, a
video game demands much more time to consume. Too, there are different expectations when it comes to games, as to how the story progresses
and what happens. What works well in cinema or writing is not ideal
for an interactive experience. TLOU2 works excellently as a cinematic experience (so much so that HBO is able to duplicate the game almost shot-for-shot in its TV series and it's still incredibly watchable).
It's less successful as a video game.

In part, it's the protagonists; by and large, they're unlikable
assholes. That is, of course, part of the point of the story; it's a
tale of coming to understand why both of the main characters are so
broken and how their short-sighted actions result in their own
self-inflicted miseries. But playing as them, and being forced to BE
them is less enjoyable. With other media, there's a distance between
you and the characters; in video-games, you're actually in the shoes
of the character and forced to make their mistakes for them. Video
games are a form of escapism, but TLOU2 doesn't allow you any relief.

The story dominates this game. It's incredibly slow paced, not helped
by 'interactive cutscenes' where you do nothing but stroll through
terrain absorbing the devastated world and dialogue that builds up the characters. Again, from a narrative point it's very well done... but
from the point of view of a video game player, I'm internally
screaming, "let me just get to the next check point and actually DO
something already!". Even the combats too often suffer from this, with
many of the bigger battles being little more than glorified (but well disguised) quick-time events where the outcome has little to do with
the player's skill and almost everything to do with the pacing of the
story.

And, oh boy; that pacing. This game is about twice as long as it needs
be. I honestly wish this game had been divided up into discrete games,
or perhaps expanded with DLC. The anachronistic order of the story
doesn't help, with you jumping back and forth through time for timely revelations of important narrative information. It makes sense for the
story but gives an incredible sense of deja vu as you revisit
locations from the viewpoint of both protagonists.

The actual gameplay is... okay. Even when not hampered by the
overbearing story, it isn't exceptional, but it's fine. The stealth
mechanics are a bit more important (and fortunately improved) than in
the first game; it's enjoyable but all the sneaking about drags out
the pace of the game even more. Aside from a bit at the start, the
game is exceptionally linear, to the point of almost being a corridor shooter. Again, nothing wrong with that except that this lack of
freedom starts to all become a bit tedious after 30 hours of playing.
The two protagonists have slightly different playstyles, which is a
welcome diversion (Ellie is more stealthy, Abby more combat-focused)
but overall the gameplay between the two isn't that different. I do
wish there was a little bit more puzzling to flesh out the
exploration; even when the game does take the time to make you try and
think your way past an obstacle, the solution is always incredibly
obvious.

Visually, the game looks quite nice; it's not the best looking game,
but it still stands up quite well. It was the first game I've played
that managed to max out (and in one case, actually exceed, causing a crash-to-desktop!) the RAM on my video-card. Kudos especially to the
person who did the skin textures, which looked a lot more realistic
than the plasticine shells most video game characters sport.

No, my biggest complaint remains about how the story dominates the
game, to the gameplay's detriment. The first "Last of Us" game managed
a good mixture of the two elements; this sequel fucked up that
balance. It's a story well worth experiencing... but you're probably
better of watching it on TV than actually playing the game.

---------------------------------------

In truth, I actually played one more game this month, probably
spending as much time with it as with the two I mentioned above. But
I'm not going to call out this third game by name, just because I
don't have anything new to say about it, and everybody else is
probably tired of me talking about it anyway (if you're a regular
here, you can probably guess which game I mean. If you need a hint,
all I'll say is that it involved driving heavy machinery).

So, that's what kept me busy this month. How about you? Tell us; we
need to know.

What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2025?

--
"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty." --Psalm 91:1. :) Labor Day, USA!
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
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On 9/1/2025 7:54 PM, Justisaur wrote:

On 9/1/2025 8:44 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

**   Dead Space (Remaster?)

My son bought this on the PS5.  I assume it's the remaster after looking
at screenshots of both.  I thought I'd give it another go since I
figured it wouldn't have the game breaking bug at the beginning like the original verson on the PC for me.  Not bad so far, but then I got stuck
in the med bay where it looks like I need to find a fuse to progress and
I've been around the whole level umpteen times.  I suppose I could look
it up, but I'm so tired of doing that, it just seems to turn me off
having to do that now.

I bothered to look it up, I felt so stupid (as I often do after looking
things up*) It took me less time than typing this. There's an engine or something on the table right by it you put in that has the same power
symbol. I haven't gotten back to the game yet, but will.

* Not with soulslikes, looking up stuff in those games is usually "How
the hell was I ever supposed to learn or know that?" Some exceptions of
course.

--
-Justisaur

ø-ø
(\_/)\
`-'\ `--.___,
¶¬'\( ,_.-'
\\
^'

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Zaghadka <[email protected]> wrote at 17:37 this Monday (GMT):

On Mon, 01 Sep 2025 11:44:36 -0400, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

So, that's what kept me busy this month. How about you? Tell us; we
need to know.


What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2025?

YES, Master. I shall do thy bidding. (*Darth Vader noise*)

I actually played a lot of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc this month.
My daughter did Let's Plays of the two sequels (2 and V3) for me over the summer break and I got into the characters and themes. It's all aimed at 14-yo boys but, what the hell, it's still fun.

In return, I did a Let's Play of the original for her before she left for college. We did full commentary and jokes, though we didn't upload any of
it. It was a private performance. Our best bit, inspired by the second chapter, was that Kyoko, the Ultimate Detective, developed an obsession
with determining the sex of everyone she met ("Sexing them"). We'd joke
about giving her a pickle jar of drosophila to get her to shut up. Gung'f orpnhfr fur varkcyvpnoyl purpxf bhg gur pebgpu bs gur qrnq obql va gur
frpbaq pnfr naq vf gur bayl bar jub xabjf gur ivpgvz jnf n pebff-qerffre.

(I don't think anyone minds being spoiled, but I ROT13ed JIC)

That's really sweet :D Glad you're having fun, even if the actual game
isn't the best

[snip]

I also played the remaster of Sam & Max: Season one (Sam & Max "Save the World"). I'm at the White House rn, and it's uncanny what's happening in
the game compared to today's *actual* White House. Scary, in fact.

something something the world is a parody

[snip]

Turns out, there are lots of PC games that are just more fun playing 10'
from a 55" screen, with a proper 5.1 soundbar. Stray is really good, for instance (which I also played briefly in August). And I figured out how
to stream anything with Ray Tracing from the office desktop. Steam Remote Play leaves something to be desired in latency, but it was fine for the
Talos Principle Remastered with RTX. I discovered it is important not to
read from the frame buffer when you're streaming HDR to HDR, because then
HDR gets screwed up and it's all washed out.

I've always wanted a setup like that, but for now I'm confined to my
laptop.

Steam's "Big Screen" mode sucks however. Still. Glad I have mouse access.

It's also extremely laggy, at least for me.

[snip]

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'll put down the coconuts and
string now.

Coconuts and string?
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Spalls Hurgenson <[email protected]> looked up from reading the entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

<snip>

What Have You Been Playing... IN AUGUST 2025?

The usual suspects, STO and CoH.
I just mostly don't feel like playing anything else even though I have
bought games on STEAM sales, I just keep coming back to those two.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

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On Tue, 2 Sep 2025 22:10:10 -0000 (UTC), in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, candycanearter07 wrote:

Coconuts and string?

It's a carryover from my Gilligan's Island analogy.

--
Zag

Give me the liberty to know, to think, to believe,
and to utter freely according to conscience, above
all other liberties. ~John Milton

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)