Board 8 > April Game of the Month Club ft. Hyper Light Drifter, DOOM, and Neon White

(+) Yeah! (+)

Marchs Games:
Hyper Light Drifter (PC/Switch/XB1/PS4/iOS)
DOOM Eternal (PC/Switch/XSX/PS5/XB1/PS4)
Neon White (PC/Switch/PS5/PS4)

Games of the Month of the Year:
Mass Effect (PC/XB1/PS4/360/PS3)
Mass Effect 2 (PC/XB1/PS4/360/PS3)
Mass Effect 3 (PC/XB1/PS4/360/PS3/Wii U)

What is Game of the Month Club?
Game of the Month is a community project open to all B8ers where users share, discover, play and/or discuss a select few games every month. The games featured each month are chosen by YOU the users (and Lady Luck)

The Basics
- Each month will usually feature three games that were chosen via a random drawing from a pool of games that users nominated
- For each game you beat, you get a cool point on our just-for-fun standings as well as a nomination for next month's randomized drawing
- In order to receive the point and nomination, you must beat said game within the calendar month
- If you beat one of the current month's games in the previous month, you can apply for a "recently beaten waiver," but you will only receive a point and no nomination should you do so
- Drawing for next month's games is usually on the 25th
- If you periodically keep us posted on your progress and/or talk about different aspects of the games, then everyone will obviously think you are super awesome!

Nomination Rules
- You get one nomination automatically each month
- You receive additional nominations each month for every featured game that you beat
- Each game you nominate has to be unique from all other nominations and cannot include a game that has already been selected for GotM
- Each game must be a standalone game that can be acquired and played on its own (aka cannot be DLC/expansion that requires the base game)
- Nominations only carry over if you beat a featured game after the drawing for next month's games but before the end of the month
- You have 9 supports you can use throughout the year. Your only limitations are that you can't support your own nomination, and you can only use one support per game per month

Just-for-Fun Top 20 Standings
KCF - 164
gameking - 116
ArkOfTurus - 101
Mr Crispy - 95
Lolo Guru - 70
Cody - 58
KnightOfNee - 35
MegamanX - 28
ViolentAbacus - 26
Seanchan - 25
Wickle - 25
Arti - 23
FakeAccount - 23
scarletspeed - 23
darkx - 18
GreatPaul - 17
Fenny - 16
MZero - 16
Suprak the Stud - 16
JONALEON - 14
tazzyboy - 14

Spreadsheet with history
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X8E8oqzES42W4S82j7WTfNnzNa8c3uXdSE1rnqYG7WM/edit?usp=sharing

Additional noms this month
Ark - 1

DOOM Eternal is on Game Pass for console, PC, and mobile (via xCloud)

Probably nothing for me this month.

I played Hyper Light Drifter not too long ago and enjoyed it. If I'm remembering right, there's more collectibles than you need to unlock everything. Which was nice.

KCF has beaten Mass Effect

The original has long been my slight preferred game from the trilogy due to it feeling like a complete, self-contained game that had room for sequels. I'm wondering if that is going to hold given that some things I have a lower tolerance for now (bad inventory management, kind of a pain to traverse the galaxy, etc...). I don't remember everything that I did in my first two runs through the trilogy, but I think I did some things to diverge from what I have done before.


I already mentioned that I was a vanguard for presumably the first time
I chose to save Kaiden over Ashley (chose Ashley both times before)
I saved the council with Udina as the human representative (chose Anderson both times)

I don't know when I will start Mass Effect 2, but since I planned on making sure at least one was finished every four months, I will hopefully have that one done by the end of summer.

I will get the ball rolling on nominations and do a stealth theme

Ghost of a Tale
UnMetal

In for HLD (thanks, KCF!)

I'd highly recommend the other two games as well.

I started some DOOM Eternal last night, and I was surprised that I was constantly running out of ammo, moreso since I rarely missed. I'm going to chalk this up to limited weapon options in the beginning as opposed to something I will be facing all game because I don't recall being out of ammo for more than 1 or 2 guns at any time during the reboot.

I'm really not liking the signficantly reduced ammo capacity and ammo economy in Eternal. It reduces the very flexible approach of the reboot by becoming more rigid in forcing you to utilize the new mechanics (especially the chainsaw's ammo refill that I can't even use on several enemy types so far). I'm hoping that once I unlock all the weapons, this won't be an issue or at least a minor one.

Yeah, Eternal focuses a lot on melee kills & chainsaw stuff. And targeting their weakpoints.

It's something I loved because it made you focus on movement and using all of the guns, but can also understand why it'd be annoying.

Doom 2016 was cheap on Fanatical so I picked that up, gonna try to finish that and still do Eternal before the end of April. Knocked out the first two levels and enjoying it so far, already getting kinda sick of the animations for melee kills though.

Almost done with Doom 2016 I think. I just killed the Cyberdemon. I'm still liking it a lot, especially now that I have the rune equipped and upgraded that makes glory kills faster. I wish there were a few more enemy types but oh well. Doom Eternal soon!

Played about an hour of Neon White. Unfortunately, I just wasn't feeling it. Ended up refunding it.

Also played a bit of Hyper Light Drifter, which I do think I'll stick with.

I haven't made much more progress in DOOM or Hyper. I'm about halfway through the former and the latter I forgot how expansive the areas were, so I haven't even beaten a boss yet.

Started Doom Eternal and did the first two levels. Uh, I think so far I like every single thing about it less than Doom 2016. I feel incredibly underpowered even compared to the very beginning of Doom 2016, though presumably once I'm better at the combat (I keep forgetting to even use the flamethrower to get armor drops) that feeling will go away. Definitely can sympathize with KCF's ammo woes.

The plot so far is like. Some Halo bullshit. I can't be bothered to care about it yet, and it doesn't help that it has not yet bothered to connect with Doom 2016's cliffhanger ending.

"You can't just shoot a hole into the center of Mars."
OBJECTIVE: Shoot a hole in Mars

Liking Doom Eternal more now. Level 3 was an incredible slog but the last couple since then have been pretty good. I dropped almost all my early upgrades into max ammo so I don't have to engage with the chainsaw -> ammo loop as much, and getting more powerful weapons helped too.

Kenri has beaten Doom Eternal

Pretty good game, though tentatively I think I liked Doom 2016 more. 2016 felt simpler and faster (and had my favorite gun of both games, the Gauss Cannon). Eternal definitely had more mechanics but I'm not sure that's something I prefer or not. It made finding secrets much, much more tolerable though, so it definitely had that over 2016. The plot of Eternal also kinda sucks unfortunately, though if you just want to see Doomguy kill stuff then it's fine. Ultimately I enjoyed both and I think I'm glad I played 2016 first, as I probably wouldn't have liked Eternal if I had jumped into it straight away.

Looking like it might be another month where I finish the game after the deadline.

Nominate Ib and Citizen Sleeper

Monthly Progress
Hyper -
DOOM - Kenri
Neon -
Mass 1 - KCF

Nominations
Ark - Ib, Citizen Sleeper
Cody - Journey
Fake - Penny Arcade 2
KCF - UnMetal, Ghost Tale
Paul - Dangan: THH

Supports

Drawing on, uh, Tuesday

I've had life stuff and also have been busy with other B8 projects (and will continue to do so into next week), but I have at least made more progress in Eternal. I think that I'm on the sixth or seventh mission. Arbitrary ammo reduction (it is like 10-70% decrease across the board from the 2016 reboot) and ammo economy can still kiss my ass, but it is still a great time.

Have about 2 hours in Hyper Light Drifter. Not sure how I feel about it so far.

I'm pretty far into Hyper Light Drifter. I've activated the four pillars, but I didn't know if there's a point of no return or if it kicks you into a ng+ like souls games do so I haven't tried to wrap everything up yet in case I decided to look for some more of the collectables.

KCF has beaten DOOM Eternal

After mostly getting used to the new mechanics, I really enjoyed this one a lot. Having played the reboot before though, I definitely prefer the first and certainly appreciate it even more. It is just disappointing to have such a high-octane game lose its momentum when I'm forced multiple times a fight to seek out the fodder amidst the chaos to chainsaw for ammo. If Id does make another game in this style, I do hope that they find a better balance to keep the game flowing.

There's no way I'm going to get through Hyper Light Drifter (especially since I have yet to beat a boss), so for my final nom

Indivisible

I haven't started HLD but I'm still gonna try to finish it this month. Won't be before the drawing though, obviously.

Nominate:
Killer7
Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner

Nominate: Star Wars Dark Forces

Last call for noms, changes, and supports

Everything is closed. I will draw soon

And your May Games of the Month are...

Star Wars: Dark Forces (PC/PS1)
Killer7 (PC/GC/PS2)
UnMetal (PC/XB1/PS4/Switch/Vita)

Congrats to Crispy, Kenri, and myself for having their games selected!

Oh man, is this a sign I should bust open my $250+ Vita copy of UnMetal?

Probably not but I'm considering it...

Fuck yeah, Killer7!

I might do UnMetal too. I kinda hate stealth games as a general rule but I got it in a bundle, so maybe it's worth a shot.

Even though I bought the PC version of Killer7 last year, it might be the game I'm most "afraid" of replaying given how much I loved it when I first went through it in 2005 (I was barely a teenager then!).

UnMetal takes priority though.

Nothing for me next month, but that's okay because Zelda.

I'll say, Killer7 is a fucking weird ass game. When your game can spawn something like this https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/239835-killer7/faqs/38193 you know you've got something wild.

I might replay Killer7. I played it in 2012 and liked it quite a bit so it's been long enough ago.

I am definitely in for Killer7

So far in HLD I have gotten 3/4 triangle thingies in the east, 2 in the north, 2 in the west, and none in the east. I should have it beat by the end of the month. But we shall see

I would have a fair bit more progress, or be done by now, but there are no cloud saves and I made the mistake of starting it on my PC instead of my Steam Deck.

2 bosses down

So I managed to get EGS working on my Steam Deck and it was a remarkably painless experience, and HLD works without any fiddling required so that's a bonus.

I already like this protagonist and I'm glad that the game is heavily foreshadowing that absolutely nothing bad will ultimately happen to them =)

I took the west path first and got a few upgrade points and a couple chunks of the west path's diamond, before hitting a seeming dead end. Then I wandered around for a long time not knowing how to progress before realizing, hey, maybe this game is more linear than I assumed. Sure enough the south and east paths seem to dead end immediately, so I took the north path and what do you know, there's a lot of stuff I can do there. I think I have 3 chunks of the north path's diamond now and that's where I called it for the night.

Abacus has beat Hyper Light Drifter

As I went through I liked it a lot more than when I did in the beginning. Getting the shotgun helped a ton, as did the multidash upgrades. I am glad because I was expecting it to be harder, but really it wasn't too bad.

Overall I enjoyed it

Raised the west and north pillars in HLD. It seems like I probably could have done west first and that I just overlooked a hidden area.

Also found a stupid fucking soccer minigame that sucks.

Star Wars: Dark Forces is on sale for $2.09 USD on Steam and GOG
https://store.steampowered.com/app/32400/STAR_WARS__Dark_Forces/
https://www.gog.com/en/game/star_wars_dark_forces

Killer7 is on sale for $5 USD on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/app/868520/killer7/

UnMetal is on sale for $10 USD on Switch
https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/unmetal-switch/

I should play Dark Forces I've had it on steam for a while.

Unmetal is also 7.99 on ps4
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0134-CUSA27670_00-9903242160180130/

Unfortunately the physical release is May 31st. Just too late to buy for this...

Kenri has beaten Hyper Light Drifter

wow that final boss sure can stun-kill you from full HP can't he

I loved this game's aesthetic but I really wish the combat was better. The dodge-dash in particular just feels wrong and even after beating the game I don't really understand the mechanics of it. A game like e.g. Hades plays extremely similarly but is just smoother and better.

Still, it was a fun, if short, experience. I don't think I'm going to be doing 100% though!

Kenri posted...

Also found a stupid fucking soccer minigame that sucks.

I also just found the stupid fucking soccer minigame that sucks. I went from completely getting destroyed, to winning with only two goals allowed, and I still don't feel like I know how I was supposed to play. I know that the reward is shit, though!

Anyway, 3/4 pillars done. Gonna have to rush to finish it today, but I should manage.

Will Neon White join Battlechasers and I think a Golden Sun as 0s on the board? We shall find out.

I kinda figured it would be the perfect type of game for this series: Well regarded by most people, new enough for enough people to not have tried it, but designed to be replayable for those who have, available on mutliple, current platforms, not too expensive, not too long... But I just didn't dig it, and I guess other people here didn't either. A shame.