WHAT PLAY YOU!? Version 3.0

[Onyx2]

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I'm still playing Portal 2 - not because I've got stuck at any point (I've only had to look up one thing) but because it's gone on way longer than I was expecting, in a really surprising direction. It's like two games in one and both of them are two of the best games ever made. Dreading finishing it, I'll be bereft.

If you have anyone who would, try the two player mode when you're finished. That's like a whole new game. 

[RedTwoster]

I’ve been giving Silksong a try, and it’s one big shoulder shrug for me. I liked Hollow Knight, but I’ve never understood The level of hype and anticipation surrounding this given that so many similar games have been released since then - and, in some cases, better games. 

I didn’t think Hollow Knight was particularly unique in that sense. Fair play to Team Cherry for managing the build as much anticipation as they did, but I’m pretty baffled as to why people care that much. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a decent game. But it’s far from genre-defining. I’d argue that the same could be said about Hollow Knight, but hey, enough people disagree with me for my views here to be completely irrelevant.

[Merzbow]

I tried the original and never finished it, seemed like a competent but unexciting and slightly generic Metroidvania that wants to be a bit Dark Souls.

[RedTwoster]

11 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

I tried the original and never finished it, seemed like a competent but unexciting and slightly generic Metroidvania that wants to be a bit Dark Souls.

That’s pretty much all it is. I did complete it, and I enjoyed it but I’m confused as to why it’s rated as highly as it is. 

Silksong is more of the same, with a lead character that plays very slightly differently, and perhaps greater difficulty spikes. It probably doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, but there have literally been hundreds of games in between the original and now which also didn’t reinvent the wheel. It’s not like fans of the genre have been lacking in choice.

[FLips]

Yeah I love a good Metroidvania but couldn’t click with Hollow Knight. One of the main points of that sort of game is for the game and areas to get gradually harder as you get more powerful. Having it just start difficult put me off and I only maybe made it to the second proper area.

I’ve been sinking a bunch of time lately into Pillars of Eternity. It’s an old school RPG in the vein of Baldurs Gate 1&2, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights which I played a bunch of as a teenager. Pre-rendered background graphics, gorgeous music and absolutely shedloads of character detail, lore and dialogue options.
It’s by Obsidian and set in the same universe as Avowed (or viceversa technically) so there’s an excellent depth to the character/class system and a lot of the lore from that is present in this.

If you (like me) didn’t enjoy Baldurs Gate 3 due to the randomness of the dice rolling system then this might be the game for you. All the depth and similar style gameplay but based on character and equipment stats rather than randomness.
Even if you did enjoy BG3 this will appeal anyway. I couldn’t stop talking to my wife about it so she downloaded it on the Xbox and spent nearly the whole weekend on it. She finished BG3 maybe 3 or 4 times and never played any of the classic style ones like this but she’s settled right into it.

 

[Scratch]

One of my favourite games of the last few years was Metroid Dread, and it’s one of the very few games I’ve ever actually completed, even managing to 100% it.

So colour me stunned when the few gaming sites that I often read were reporting how mad people were getting about Silksong as I thought Hollow Knight was rather crap. It just did absolutely nothing for me at all and I found it incredibly dull.

You can probably tell I’m not exactly target demographic for modern games.

[Merzbow]

I think it falls under that same kind of banner that Undertale did, certain people are just deeply in love with the characters and world yet I just don't get it. Fair play though, it's great to see indie games like those rise so high that they can hang with AAA titles in popularity.

For me it was and still is Disco Elysium, but I've waxed on about that beautiful bit of art enough before.

[RedTwoster]

56 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

I think it falls under that same kind of banner that Undertale did, certain people are just deeply in love with the characters and world yet I just don't get it. Fair play though, it's great to see indie games like those rise so high that they can hang with AAA titles in popularity.

For me it was and still is Disco Elysium, but I've waxed on about that beautiful bit of art enough before.

Yeah, you can’t help but congratulate the team behind it. I don’t have to ‘get it’ to feel happy for them and the success they’ve had. There have been so many awful gaming stories this year regarding job losses (generally unnecessary ones, to ensure shareholders can make more money) that it’s great to see independent developers and smaller studios do so well. I don’t think much of the game, but I hope they have many more successes going forward.

[Devon Malcolm]

Really glad I paid that £6.50 for Hollow Knight now.

[Merzbow]

I restarted Yakuza: Dead Souls again, completely fell off early when it came out due to the clunky shooting and having to use the left stick to aim. It's aged badly due to that but I'm weirdly having far more fun this time around, I do think it deserves a remaster with modern controls but doubt we'll ever get it. 

At it's core it's still the same old Yakuza game with it's batshit over the top story and humorous side quests. Ryuji Goda is somehow a playable character but I'm pretty sure the game isn't canon, set in an alternative timeline as the zombie outbreak is never mentioned again.

[Chest Rockwell]

Been really enjoying Sagat in sf6, playing him a lot since he came out. With the other characters I've played I have always ended up drifting back to Guile, but I think Sagat might be becoming my main. Something about his gameplay that is just really satisfying. 

[RedTwoster]

I bought Adventure of Samsara yesterday on the back of reading this article from VGC. 

In short, it’s a challenging Metroidvania from Atari that made the risky decision to launch on the same day as Silksong…which didn’t pay off because virtually no one is playing it.

But the thing is, it’s actually an excellent game. Or it has been so far, at least. I’m enjoying it more than Silksong; probably in part because I’d not heard of it before reading the VGC article and had no expectations. Given that it had a peak of 12 concurrent players on Steam when the article was written, I wanted to post about it here because it simply doesn’t deserve to be overlooked in the way that it has, even if they are now the case study for why the developers who shifted their release dates away from Silksong made a sensible decision.

[DavidB6937]

Pretty decent Nintendo Direct today I thought. But then I saw a bunch of people ranting in the comments. Does that happen every time? I rarely get a chance to watch them live but I imagine people hype themselves up unnecessarily beforehand.

[JLM]

Yeah there are always people claiming every Direct is the worst one ever because they didn’t announce whichever game these people had decided would be announced in their heads. 

Personally any doubts I had about my Switch 2 purchase melted away when I unlocked Birdo’s summer hat. 
 

I’ve been patient with Hades 2 and resisted early access. I normally love an early access indie game, but Hades was so very very polished that I didn’t want to see the sequel until it had finished baking. Grabbing that for Switch for sure. 
 

Resi 9 trailer was lovely but I’ll be getting that on PC.

Metroid is going to be great, Pokopia looks like it will sell 6 billion copies and the human Ditto is a hilarious abomination. My cousin is bouncing off the walls about the new Fire Emblem. I haven’t got DK Bananza yet but the DLC looks lovely. 
 

Virtual Boy was quite a left field and fun classics announcement.

Pretty standard Direct, not sure what people expect from them really. There will be a new proper Mario and it will be a masterpiece, but it was never going to be announced this early. 

Edited September 12, 2025 by JLM

[Jazzy G]

There's some really interesting stuff on that Direct. Dinkum could be fun, more news on Tomodachi Life. That open world Pokémon game (henceforth known as Pokemanimal Crossing) could be interesting. That Lynked Roguelite appeals to me. Two Point Museum looks cool. I like the extra bits of mouse functionality as well. They need to figure out how to implement it in FPS style games so I can enjoy some pseudo keyboard and mouse fun. I'm much better playing that way that with two analogue sticks. 

Hades 2 got me excited, as did Power Wash 2. That Yoshi thing looks cool as well.