PC Gaming

currently going trough my personal backlog of games I've always wanted to play but never could. Never had my own console or a good enough PC. bought myself a steam deck and I've been an absolute degenerate doing nothing but playing video games. Just finished all 3 watch dogs (+ DLCs), currently working my way trough horizon zero dawn then will play forbidden west. Also simultaneously playing expedition 33, fallout 4, sleeping dogs and the witcher 3. I know its not high art but watch dogs is my favourite game and franchise I wish ubisoft would do something more with it.

This community is kind of in the shadow of all the other gaming communities, it doesn't feel like it has a strong identity to separate it. There's already plenty of weekly threads elsewhere to discuss what we're playing and I already feel like I repeat myself between !gaming@beehaw.org and !patientgamers@sh.itjust.works. Do we need another one here? But sure.

I've been playing through the Ninja Gaiden series lately. Finished Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 on normal, playing on Xemu and Xenia Canary emulators respectively. Currently playing through Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge from the master collection, though I'm not sure I will finish it.

NG3RE should have the best combat in the series. The fundamentals are better than ever, Ryu is more fluid in his movements than ever and the combo strings are more flexible than ever. It just... I dunno. It doesn't feel as good, satisfying or just fun. NGB had extremely precise, measured and deliberate combat, albeit slower than the later games. NG2 was an unbalanced mess, but it had a visceral pleasure when it clicked that is simply unparalleled. NG3RE changes the formula a lot, and not always for the better. Trying to play for Steel On Bone counters is what the game wants you to do, but it's more reactive and less fun than previous games. And the animations aren't as satisfying as the executions in NG2. NG3RE also has even worse bosses, which is a damn feat considering the series has some real stinkers.

And let's not even get into the atrocious story, which manages to be maximally bad and lame but without ever crossing over into "so bad it's good" territory. The Call of Duty or Ghost Recon-esque military special agent framing also ruins the vibe, and the boring and terrible level design makes me miss the wildly varied and interesting locations of NG2.

I really don't know if I'll finish it, all I want to do really is go back and play NGB and NG2 again. At least I found FiendBusa's "Black" mod for it, that makes it a bit better.