The Backlog Check-in Vol. 296: 9/2/23: Baldur’s Gate III (PS5)/NBA 2K24/Starfield Edition

[Phaseknox]

Played: Need For Speed Heat, Sea of Stars

Finished: Nothing

Playing: Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle

Added: Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle, Gal Guardians: Demon Purge, Sea of Stars

I started playing Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle, and I’m enjoying it. It’s a linear third person survival horror game inspired by Resident Evil, but it’s darker, scarier and more serious in tone. The graphics kind of look like a PS3/Xbox 360 generation game, but the art design, lighting and ambient noises deliver a claustrophobic, dark and unsettling atmosphere. It was made by a small Italian dev team so it doesn’t have the biggest production values, but they did a good job with the budget that they had to work with. It’s higher quality than an indie game, it’s a AA game. It plays fairly solid with pretty good gameplay and shooting mechanics, but the camera is closer to the character than I would like. However, it’s not a fast action type game where you’re dodging and rolling around, it’s primarily slowly searching environments, collecting key items, solving occasional puzzles and shooting creatures. The story, characters and voice acting are all ok, they’re nothing great but not bad. It’s a good game overall, and I look forward to playing it some more.

Games releasing this week
Abriss - Build to Destroy
Alchemy Garden
Anonymous;Code
Baldur’s Gate III (PS5)
Borderlands Collection: Pandora’s Box
Cats and the Other Lives
Chants of Sennaar
Conbunn Cardboard
Dokapon Kingdom: Connect
The Dragoness: Command of the Flame
Dreamers
Enchanted Portals
Escape First Alchemist
Eternal Tombs
Fae Farm
Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis
Girl Genius: Adventures in Castle Heterodyne
Hexapoda
Into the Sky
Lempo
The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo
Medieval Apocalypse
Microvolts: Recharged
Molly Medusa: Queen of Spit
Monochrome Mobius: Rights and Wrongs Forgotten
NBA 2K24
Rune Factory 3 Special
Shepherd’s Crossing
Starfield
Synced
Taravana: Deep Ocean Survival
Tiny Witch
Toss!
Wastelander

[argyle]

Games added: Souldiers (ps4), Starfield

Last week: Finished nothing, didn't play much until the weekend & then a lot of Souldiers & Starfield

This week: Same.


Souldiers runs much better on the ps4 (tho there is still the very occasional hiccup, they are not nearly as frequent or as bad) - I've gotten past where I stopped on the Switch version.

I had some Bing credit, so I sprung for the premium upgrade to Starfield which will give me the expansion whenever it comes out & let me play the game early. So far, it's really, really good. It feels very different from the other 2 big Bethesda franchises, but at the same time it feels distinctly like one of their games. It looks great - even the people. It also controls really well. Everything feels very smooth - combat, flying the ship, etc. Even tho I have hit one activity that seemed bugged, the game has very little of the Bethesda jank so far. And I guess it goes without saying, but it's absolutely massive. But I'm not just talking about area-wise, I mean as far as questlines, activities, etc. - you are given a ton of things you can pursue from the beginning, and clearly I've only scratched the surface. I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, but it's getting its hooks in me pretty quickly - I think I'll be on this one for a while.

[isthatallyougot]

I've got the original Daymare in my backlog phase, but never got around to it. I always thought it looked like I'd enjoy it though.

Of course I'm also interested in Starfield, argyle, but I'll wait a while before eventually picking it up on PC. But I know I love the Bethesda open world rpg formula, so I'm pretty sure I'll really enjoy that one as well.

I'm onto book 2 (of 3) in The Pillars of the Earth. It's been interesting if slow developing, but I'm glad they take the time for character development. The Medieval setting is always interesting to me as well.

[Phaseknox]

I had some Bing credit, so I sprung for the premium upgrade to Starfield which will give me the expansion whenever it comes out & let me play the game early. So far, it's really, really good. It feels very different from the other 2 big Bethesda franchises, but at the same time it feels distinctly like one of their games. It looks great - even the people. It also controls really well. Everything feels very smooth - combat, flying the ship, etc. Even tho I have hit one activity that seemed bugged, the game has very little of the Bethesda jank so far. And I guess it goes without saying, but it's absolutely massive. But I'm not just talking about area-wise, I mean as far as questlines, activities, etc. - you are given a ton of things you can pursue from the beginning, and clearly I've only scratched the surface. I wasn't sure what to expect with this one, but it's getting its hooks in me pretty quickly - I think I'll be on this one for a while.

I’m glad to hear that it’s good, but unfortunately I’ll never get to play it.

I've got the original Daymare in my backlog phase, but never got around to it. I always thought it looked like I'd enjoy it though.

I always thought that the original Daymare looked decent, but I never got it because you play as three different dudes in it. I’m not into sausage fests. Thankfully the prequel has you play as one female character. The character’s voice doesn’t really fit her look IMO, and the dialogue is kind of strange at times probably because it’s an Italian game translated to English. The story starts off decent, but then kind of goes off the rails halfway through. While it starts off with a good balance of survival horror aspects and third person shooting, it becomes more of a third person shooter later with a focus on combat.

Even on story (easy) difficulty it’s more like normal to hard, you’re not fighting slow moving zombies in this game. The enemies are fast and instantly rush and grab you, if you shoot at them while they’re rushing you they’ll often quickly dodge out of the way. When you do shoot them they’re bullet sponges that can reach you before you take them down. Shotgun blasts are a lot more effective than your assault rifle, but shotgun ammo is fairly scarce. In fact all resources are fairly scarce, I had to restart the game and manage my health packs better because I ran out the first time with only a little health left and wasn’t able to progress in the game any further because one hit from an enemy killed me.

You also get a freeze weapon early in the game that shoots a freezing spray that freezes enemies, and allows you to shatter them with bullets or a punch when they’re frozen. But it takes a while to freeze them, and they often reach you before you do. Not to mention that you also run out of freeze fuel somewhat quickly, and either have to use a cartridge to instantly refill it or wait for it to refill slowly on its own.

I like the combat, but it starts getting difficult partly due to limited resources and partly due to too many enemies coming at you at once. This is a behind the shoulder shooter where you don’t really have the ability to take on several enemies at the same time especially when they’re all coming at you from different directions. It gets to be a little much even on easy which isn’t easy by any means. I’m still sticking with the game for now because I’m enjoying it for the most part, but the difficulty might become too much for me. We’ll see.

[jfissel]

Finished: Nothing

Now Playing: Zero Time Dilemma, PowerWash Simulator DLC

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 41 games

I started Zero Time Dilemma and I'm working my way through whatever wonky story it is this time. Also, PowerWash Simulator got a new update with more free DLC...fun times.

[Phaseknox]

I decided to stop playing Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle because it’s a tense and stressful game to play. The environments are dark and claustrophobic, and each enemy encounter is a challenge. Resources are limited, so I know that I can’t use too many in one battle because I’ll need some for further battles. This is part of what makes it a survival horror game, but it has some of the most challenging combat that I’ve experienced in a survival horror game before. I like the combat, but it requires you to really excel in each battle so that you don’t use up too much of your resources. This kind of makes me somewhat dread the enemy encounters, because I know that they’re going to be tough and I have to do well in them. Of course this makes them intense and visceral, but a little too much since they’re constant. I admit that these days I tend to like to go through games a little more casually without constantly being challenged every step of the way, I prefer challenging moments to be somewhat spread out instead of continuous.

[isthatallyougot]

I'm still chipping away at Pillars of the Earth. I'm close to 10 hours in but not even half way through the story (judging by chapters). It's got it's pluses and minuses, but I can't fault it for being a brief tale. There have been a good number of interesting story beats, but it has also been very slow going overall. It's got enough to keep me interested though, so I'm sure I'll see it through to the conclusion, for better or worse.

[canedaddy]

Played recently: nothing

Finished: nothing

Added to backlog: nothing

Current backlog: 33


No gaming for me in a while... I've been out camping and whatnot. I'm probably going to fire up something tonight, but I really don't know what. Maybe FFXV, maybe NFS Heat, maybe something else. Nothing in the ol' backlog is jumping out at me.