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Dufniall

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Posts posted by Dufniall

  1. So, what did we think of this in the end? I enjoyed it in the beginning but haven't played it for the last couple of months. With so many games on the Switch, stuff like this (or Tetris 99) just falls to the back of my playlist. The events in this were also not that interesting, and maybe knowing all progress would go on 31st of March also made me play it not that much.

    I did start it up yesterday to see what happens. You can start the game, select a game mode (it even still tells you a special event is happening), pick a mode, choose your loadout, start cueing and that's the moment it finally tells you online services have ended. They could have done an update telling you that on the homescreen, prompting an uninstall or something.

  2. The credits have rolled this weekend after taking down Magnamalo and unlocking the 5-star quests. I whacked my way through it with only my Switch Axe and Aknosom armour, but before continuing I crafted a better bow and a hunting horn for some online play. Join quest works like a charm, almost every quest I started ended with a full house and a second or third player would usually join after minutes. Haven't tried setting up a lobby though, does that work okay with randoms?

    The game looks amazing and is full of charm; the rural Japanese setting, your animal friends including the cohoot, the happy song when eating bunny dango, loving it. I disliked how unclear upgrading weapons was in MHGU, so I'm glad it's now much more obvious how weapon paths branch out. The wirebug is a great addition as well and gives you plenty of wiggle room.

    I didn't have any trouble so far. Got knocked down 3 times; once by Tobi-Kadachi and twice by Magnamalo, but haven't failed a quest yet. On the one hand I think it's because I've played a bunch of MH games before. Even with the new monsters you can quickly recognize the patterns as they are taken from the behaviour of older monsters. Plus the game is much easier. There are healing items in the wild and I'm auto-crafting First Aid Med+, no need for micro management like hot/cold items, and stamina depletion seems hardly an issue now (I almost never run out of breath and can survive on a single ration). Only sharpening is something that can leave you vulnerable. So although I'm loving most of the QoL/streamlining, it does make the game a bit too easy. Hopefully High Rank can fix it a bit.

    Anyway, enjoying it to the fullest despite these gripes. It's a shame most of you are UK based as you all start playing when I'm off to bed haha. But even with randoms online is fun.

  3. The Dutch support site says the shops close on July 2 for the PSP and PS3, and on August 27 for the Vita.

    After that date you can still:

    • redownload bought games
    • access purchased video and media content
    • exchange game and PS Plus vouchers
    • redownload PS Plus claimed games

    You can't:

    • Buy PS3/PSP/Vita digital content
    • Buy in-game purchases
    • Use credits in your PSN wallet

    https://www.playstation.com/nl-nl/support/important-notice/

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  4. Another good episode, and a cool Topic of the Week! Enjoy your well-deserved rest, and thanks for all the time and work that went into the podcast. :bowdown:

    And episode 69 is finally on YouTube as well, I completely forgot to upload it over the weekend (blame MH Rise). 

     

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  5. A bunch of previews have popped up for New Pokémon Snap, which seem to be based on a showcase instead of a hands-on. Only had the time to read the Dutch one, but they seem fairly positive but are hesitant because the showcase obviously only highlights the good bits.

    https://www.polygon.com/pokemon/22347102/new-pokemon-snap-preview-release-date-gameplay

    https://www.gameinformer.com/preview/2021/03/24/new-pokemon-snap-preview-seaside-snapping

    https://gamer.nl/artikelen/preview/new-pokemon-snap-lijkt-een-droomvervolg-te-worde/ (in Dutch)

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  6. I finished Stephen King's Pet Sematary last week. It's one of the few times a book has made me really uncomfortable. Without going into spoilers, there are a number of moments where I thought: "Is this really going to happen?" or "Is he really going to do this?". The ending was a bit of a let-down though, it went a bit too all-out horror for my liking. But for the rest a pretty good read and a classic Stephen King.

    Despite various warnings about it not being great (like the one from @bob up here), I've started Ready Player Two. I know I would want to read it anyway so better to get it out of the way. :grin: Yeah the start isn't promising. Parzival and Art3mis have become some kind of moody characters, and the story isn't that engaging. The 80s and 90s references aren't as clever as they were in the first part either.

  7. As a Dutchie I always feel like this on St. Patrick's Day:

    Usually I "celebrate" by listening to a lot of Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys, and this year was no different. Well it was different because I didn't even drink a pint yesterday! We did make Irish beef stew with Guinness last Saturday though. Put on last year's DKM video of their St. Patrick's Day show, which was already a stream without audience. Seriously, has it been a year in lockdown already?

     

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  8. 7 minutes ago, Cube said:

    How are the sweet potatoes in the Katsu Curry prepared?

    Curious about that as well because that's what caught my eye in your picture. They look breaded or marinated or something.

    And it looks you cook similar as I do haha. In the weekends we often make Yotam Ottolenghi dishes but he uses a lot of exotic ingredients. So we often substitute it with stuff that we think is pretty similar :grin:

  9. Besides Super Mario 3D World, I haven't completed many games but I have been dabbing in a number of different titles on different platforms.

    Rocksmith Remastered (PC)

     

    I’ve been playing quite a bit of Rocksmith lately, after acquiring a big load of the DLC tracks. For those who don’t know Rocksmith, it’s basically Guitar Hero but with a real guitar or bass guitar. The difficulty increases when you play well, and that way you are learning to play the instrument and to play the songs.

     

    I got a second-hand guitar and I’ve been playing a bunch of the easier songs available which is a lot of fun! On bass guitar I’m a bit more skilled so it’s been a blast playing through a variety of songs.

     

    Inside (PC)

     

     

     

    I have finally played Inside, and I’m glad to finally have experienced it! It’s a tricky game to talk about without spoiling it. Gameplay-wise it is a pretty straightforward game where you can walk, jump and perform an action (grabbing stuff, flipping switches). The obvious thing to do is compare it with Limbo and I think Limbo has the better puzzles (they were a bit more complex as far as I can remember). Inside though has a bit more variety in gameplay, and wins in the atmosphere and graphics department.

     

    Story-wise it’s a pretty vague story, but I won’t go into it here. People who played it will know it and people who haven’t played should go in pretty blank I think. Small spoiler but not really a spoiler: 

     

    Spoiler

    what a twist at the end, the last half hour was a proper wtf experience!

     

    It’s a pretty brief experience if you don’t go all out trying to find all the collectibles. In the end I only found 3 of those (out of the 14 or so) and the game took me about 3 hours. Definitely recommended, if you can get it in a sale you won’t lose much as it’s a short but bittersweet ride.

     

    Burnout Paradise Remastered (Switch)

     

    I never played the original (or any Burnout game for that matter, always was a Need for Speed guy for arcade racing). But I’m seriously enjoying my time with it! There is enough variety to keep it interesting, with different game modes, the secrets to find, cars to unlock and times and high scores to set. The DLC Surf Island is a great inclusion, it’s a more compact map but with a lot more verticality and I think I prefer it over the original city.

     

    The open world is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand it’s great to be able to find your own route in a race, but I have on numerous occasions missed a turn or I just had the map wrong and then it’s game over.

     

    Online has been fun as well, I’ve played a couple of games with people from here and Discord. Online the variety is there as well, with the different missions, races, marked man or just messing around in the free driving mode.

     

     

    (Clownferret being an arse!)

     

    Plenty still for me to unlock so I’m keeping this installed for my racing fix.

     

    R-Type Dimensions EX (Switch)

     

    a0594936f572d14b6fde439d55dc345a.jpg

     

    This was a bit of a disappointment. I bought R-Type in the last sale, because I have fond memories of the Game Boy version and this remake looked promising with the revamped graphics and the inclusion of 2 R-Type games.

     

    You can play both games in the original graphics mode (and matching soundtrack), or with modern graphics and audio. What’s cool is you can switch on the fly with a push of a button, during a play-through. What I often did is play in modern graphics but switch to classic every now and then to see how a boss or environment looks in the classic graphics.

     

    The disappointment comes from the fact that I just don’t enjoy the games. I think I can safely conclude that shoot-em-ups just are not for me, and especially these “unfair” arcade ones which are clearly made to replay dozens of times to learn the patterns. Luckily there is an infinite mode that has endless lives, otherwise I wouldn’t have made it past world 2 I guess. I just don’t have the reflexes or patience anymore to cope with these kinds of games.

     

    I will play through them again on full classic mode though, but after that this can go into the archive.

     

    Mario Tennis Open (3DS)

     

    SI_3DS_MarioTennisOpen_image1600w.jpg

     

    I got a copy of Mario Tennis Open second-hand and I’ve been putting a bit of time in it. Played the minigames and unlocked the gold ones for those, and played some offline tournaments in singles and doubles.

     

    It’s a pretty entertaining game, but I can imagine that if you got this on launch for the full price it is a bit barebones. To be honest I have had that feeling with more of the Mario sports titles and I always felt they could just make a Mario Sports game (kind of like the Mario & Sonic Olympic games) and throw in 3 or 4 sports.

     

    What is there plays solid though, the option to do the highlighted power shots is pretty useful in the beginning but when the matches get a bit harder and I learned what button does what shot I started mixing it up a bit more. I’ll probably give it a couple of more whirls but I can’t be bothered to unlock everything.

     

    The Legend Of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (3DS)

     

    img_triforceheroes_2.jpg

     

    I only put in a little bit of time in it, but just wanted to share my initial thoughts. As a single player game it is pretty decent, and the first few levels are okay but they didn’t really trigger me to play on. I got a The Lost Vikings kind of vibe from it, due to the switching between Links. I can imagine that when the levels get more difficult it will get a bit more hectic in single player though. The story is really quite forgettable though and a bit silly.

     

    I found a couple of games online as well and when everyone cooperates it’s great. But I was in a lobby with a bunch of freaking annoying people who would just run around at the end of a level refusing to step on the circle. Bloody awful.

     

    It would be cool if I could get a couple of you guys in to play it, because I think it’ll be a lot more fun that way!

     

    And I think it would be even better if the next multiplayer Zelda title throws in additional characters and not just Links. Hyrule Warriors has proven that playing other characters from the Zelda universe adds variety, so I hope we can one day see a Four Swords Adventure type of game where I can play as Link, Zelda, Impa, a Goron, and so on. 

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  10. 10 hours ago, Cube said:

    Tonight's tea was a cauliflower pizza. The cauliflower is actually the base (it takes ages to grate a cauliflower, btw)

    I once made cauliflower rice, and I threw the cauliflower in a blender if you have one, works wonders! I have something like this and the second bit is really useful for hacking up stuff:

    550x523.jpg

     

    • Like 1
  11. Another entertaining episode! It's funny because when that very first Nintendo Switch trailer came out, I thought that beat-em-ups would be great for tabletop mode. As you're playing with 2 people on a small screen it would be a good fit since it doesn't require split-screen for co-op. How nice to see that the genre did make a revival (although not only the Switch is the reason for it).

    Mickey Mania was such a cool game! I remember playing it at a friend's house, and the black-and-white start on Steamboat Willy was great. Still, The Magical Quest will remain my favourite Mickey Mouse game. Another Disney game I played a lot was The Jungle Book, also from Virgin I think. And Aladdin I rented a couple of times back in the day.

    As for a modern revival. I would love to see the real-time-strategy genre make a proper comeback. Games like Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Starcraft and Dune 2000. Another genre that I loved when I was younger but haven't played in a while as I feel that there have been no good releases in it is the point & click. Although you could argue that maybe the walking simulator is kind of filling in this gap.

    Desert Strike/Jungle Strike is a great shout, loved these as a kid and wouldn't mind a remake of that. Speaking of helicopter games, Choplifter II on the Game Boy, I have fond memories of that but no clue if that holds up.

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  12. I found out that with a firmware update the Steam Controller supports bluetooth. So over the weekend I've been messing about with that combined with Steam Link and my phone, and it works pretty decent. Streamed a couple of games from PC to my phone that way while playing with the Steam Controller. It's pretty weird playing high graphics games like Killer Instinct or Shadow of the Tomb Raider on your phone!

    So my next step will be to see if I can make Epic Store games work through Steam Link streaming. I have a number of indie games on the Epic Store from the weekly free claims, but I prefer to play in the living room on the couch instead of in my work room where the PC is. Also the misses often uses the TV so being able to play handheld would be pretty sweet. That way I won't have to buy all those indies on Switch to play handheld.

    If I can get that to work I'm going to try to find a fitting phone mount for the Steam Controller. There are a few 3D print models out there like shown below, but I think on Amazon there are options made for the XBox/PS controllers that fit on the Steam Controller as well. And with that I should have the option to play my PC library anywhere!d7b70b7f4bdaa8368e6fbc0ed288ea62_preview

    Edit: I followed the guide on this website and it works! I can now launch Epic Store games through the Steam Link app and they run. Gave Abzu a quick test and so far so good.

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  13. Finished listening, and thanks for answering the question! Some cameos there that you mentioned I didn't know existed, so cheers for that! Liked your suggestions as well:

    • For a Nintendo Kart, I'm on the fence for something like that. It may become too much of a parody, seeing characters like Samus or Captain Falcon folded up in a kart. Link already looks weird in MK8. But maybe if they abandoned the karts and go for more general rides (Captain Falcon in his Blue Falcon, Samus in her ship, Kirby on a Rainbow Ride/Star kind of thing) that could work. Because they are already going down that road with the inclusion of Link, Villager and the F-Zero tracks in 8. Commercially it could be a success like Nick said.
    • I really like the idea of a Zelda-themed strategy game. It would worked so damn well, basically you can just copy/paste the Zelda universe on a Fire Emblem game and done.
    • A sailing (mini)game sounds awesome as well. Would be full of charm and could make a great spin-off title.
    • I've yet to play Link's Crossbow Training but fleshing that out and making it an on-rails shooter is something I wouldn't say no to.
    • Things that popped in my head: An action/adventure in the style of Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta. Story of Seasons X Zelda, tending to your own Lon Lon Ranch while questing out in caves and dungeons. Tingle's Theathrythm with crazy dances and Zelda songs. Or a Zelda title (not necessarily a spin-off) set closer to present times, throw in steampunk technology. You could say that was already in BOTW with the Divine Beasts, but they could take it further.

    Thanks for another enjoyable episode, I hope to get it on YouTube today!

    EDIT: Here it is.

     

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  14. I placed my pre-order last week and after yesterday's showcase I can't wait! Not the greatest of presentations with them rehashing all previous info, but the overall picture is looking great. The Rampage looks to be a proper tower defense mode, and it's nice to have a dedicated single player. Free post-game DLC is always welcome, and I hope we will see some free cross-overs with other franchises as well. The worlds look good and it's nice to see a swamp return a la Flooded Forest from MH3. It does look like the regular grass/fire/ice/desert mix so not that inspirational.

    Drop-in drop-out online is a gift of the gods, because joining a lobby where people just started on a 40 minute quest is no fun at all. The only downside is that communication will still be a bit flawed without voice chat. I tried using a USB keyboard in the demo and at least that works.

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  15. 4 hours ago, Kav said:

    DeeBeeGeek’s stream of Breath of the Wild (his first Zelda game) is an amazing journey, a PlayStation & Xbox gamer diving headfirst into Zelda, it’s well worth watching... hours of fun as he plays it to completion.

     

    Totally unrelated but seriously, why is every YouTube video thumbnail a picture of the host with an awkward facial expression nowadays?

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