What are you currently playing?

[09philj]

Dishonored again, this time with the Knife of Dunwall and Brigmore Witches DLC. The base game could do with maybe one more slightly formula breaking level like Lady Boyle's Last Party but I think it's still a really strong piece of work, particularly when it comes to the atmosphere and art direction. I've just beaten Knife of Dunwall and I think the second of the three levels in it was the only one that really stood out. I prefer games like Dishonored when you have multiple paths open but not to the extent that you can just evade the challenge, and not feel penalised for using a particular playstyle and the first level was much too easy to teleport through while the last level was a paint to complete on low Chaos.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I posted here earlier at how I was pissed with Modern Warfare. That was because somehow, in 2021, region locking games still exist.

Now that I went to the fucking trouble of making a new account with the correct region, I find out that A) Warzone is installed BEFORE the main fucking game, B) you need to install the campaign, multiplayer, AND spec ops modes SEPARATELY, C) they have the audacity to advertise Cold War, by all accounts a massively inferior game, before you can even select Modern Warfare itself, and D) YOU CAN'T FUCKING UNINSTALL WARZONE. This game is over 100 fucking gigabytes.

I was sort of interested in playing the campaign, but I was mostly doing this for my sister who enjoys playing against bots in CoD games. But this, this is fucking ridiculous. How anyone could stomach this bullshit is beyond me, and I genuinely question the sanity of the people who can continue to support this franchise.

 

[BrawlMan]

I've been playing the shit out of Streets of Rage 4's Survival mode. It's fun, but though. I've never made it past level 24 yet. I still don't like how you have to play this mode to unlock everyone's alternate move set. Granted, the further you get, the faster XP unlocks, buy why not unlock them from the start? It just creates padding. Also, certain characters alternate blitz attack, offensive/air offensive (forward) + specials are not as good as their originals or perform worst. I've done the original 5, now I got to do the DLC characters. After that, it's the retro characters that are next.

Mania+ mode is even harder and adds more enemies. I've playing with Blaze in Story mode, so I can use the assist options if need be. Her second blitz attack (the piercing multi hitting fist attack) and second forward + special are game breakers and the best combinations. There is no reason to go back to her original blitz attack, other than the attack can hit twice or three times, depending on where the mook landed. I'm on Stage 9, Y Tower, so welcome to hell. I'll see how I perform later.

I posted here earlier at how I was pissed with Modern Warfare. That was because somehow, in 2021, region locking games still exist.

That sucks. Were you playing on consoles or PC? The PS4 and PS5 are region free, so it could be them. I don't remember the Xone or Series X being region free.

 

[laggyteabag]

I finished Mass Effect a couple of weeks ago, but im still not ready to jump into anything significant, so I've been doing something that I don't normally do: play a multiplayer game.

I reconnected with a few friends, and we have been playing some War Thunder, which is a game that I haven't touched in a few years.

We've been playing tank battles, whereas I had only ever played air battles, so I was pretty much starting from scratch.

There is a lot of depth. Different weapon sizes, different ammo types, the intricacies of the amount of armour that each tank has, and its angle - which determines if your shots penetrate or ricochet - modules inside of these vehicles that you can damage/destroy to remove functionality ie, shooting, moving, etc. There is a lot going on, and this is just in the "Arcade" mode - and there are even more realistic modes available.

Sometimes I go on some really entertaining streaks, landing some really impressive shots - and sometimes I waste all 3 of my lives, barely doing a thing. You know, your standard multiplayer experience.

My only real gripe is the monetisation - as this is a free 2 play game, afterall. I wouldn't go as far as to say that this is a Pay 2 Win game. There isn't anything like the Premium ammo from World of Tanks that is straight up better than what you have as standard (im not too sure if this still exists). You can buy Premium tanks, which in many cases are just fully upgraded versions of standard vehicles, just with a special coat of paint, and you level up faster whilst using them. This isn't particularly egregious, because unlocking all of the upgrades for your non-premium tanks doesn't really take very long at all. The issue is that some vehicles are premium-exclusive. Again, none (so far) strike me as being an improvement over what a F2P player has access to, but there are definitely more options in the premium catalogue, than is in the standard research tree - like cross-faction "captured" vehicles, or entirely exclusive models.

It is also one of those games where the microtransactions are stupidly expensive, so the game doesn't do a great job at convincing me to pay for anything. Some of these premium vehicles cost about £50 by themselves. There are even a couple of instances where the game locks one premium vehicle behind a paywall of another premium vehicle. Bonkers.

I never really understand why F2P devs set these unrealistic prices. Im sure someone pays for these things, but from my perspective, I really don't have a problem with spending a couple of £s here and there, but it will be a cold day in hell before I spend the price of a new game, on a single item in a F2P one.

Still, the game is a lot of fun without spending a penny, so it really doesn't bother me.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Currently reaping the benefits of the first of four Quick Draw passes in RDO and will check out Blood Money next. The online portion of the game gets its fair share of criticism but it’s nice that all the updates are free. These new passes are blitzes at 25 levels a piece, released every month vs the 100 level marathon Outlaw passes beforehand. I got to level 20 rather quickly over the last two or three nights even before having enough gold to buy in, whereupon the multiplier makes them pretty much fly by. The cost of entry in-game is once again fully replenished via completing the levels along with the other rewards, so I already have most of my bars back. I might opt for the prestigious bounty hunter license if the Blood Money missions yields gold fast enough. The last horse I’d like to get is the black Turkomen, which costs 40 bars but chances are one of the passes will have a steep discount on stables.

Having said that, the economy still could certainly be tweaked to be fair and practical for the time period it represents, but as-is there’s enough ways to earn cash and gold even for someone like me who doesn’t play all day.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Replaying HZD. Ranks high on my list of perfectly fine games I'm unlikely to replay because the beginning is such a slog. But now that I'm out and about I'm having fun with it. I should keep backups 2 or 3 hours into good games that take forever to get going. Last of Us, RDR2, GoW 4...

 

[Bob_McMillan]

That sucks. Were you playing on consoles or PC? The PS4 and PS5 are region free, so it could be them. I don't remember the Xone or Series X being region free.

The PS4. Seems this region locking is purely on Activision's side.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

WCR 9 FIA World Rally Championship.

Yeah, not bad, nice dualshock controller feedback and smooth frame rate at last. Looks and plays wonderfully. Business management is pretty much same as before, but shinier I guess?

Now Dirt Rally has started to indulge in those succulent bad business practices including the painfully unnecessary online requirements for its single-player campaign, this Rally series does feel like it has surpassed Dirt for the first time. Oh and Codemasters is owned by EA now, holy fuck they've pretty much undergone zombification!

It's difficult though, why is rally so difficult?? Oh right, yeah, might have turned that option up a bit, but only a little bit! The historic rally races can be serious arse-gripping moments.

 

[happyninja42]

My Military run with STALKER has left me near supply less and trapped with these goddamned Monolith squads EVERWHERE. I'm going to need some time away with a simpler gunporn.

Thus, Farcry 5 with mods. The stars of said mods being Better Ballistics (holy SHIT is the game lethal with this), civilian skins for the cult's vehicles (adds a bit more paranoia), alternate NPC/Cult armaments (think you've invincible in a helicopter? Not no more once they start bringing out the Rat-4 with targeters...) and an honest to bob weather system.

Ooh, yeah a weather system would be really fun in Farcry games. Especially things like fog or hard rain/thunder, to throw off your ability to detect enemies, either visually or audibly.

OT: Beat Sekiro, got the Severance ending. It was about as rewarding as I thought it would be, which is not a lot. Which sucks because....well mostly because I spent 60 bucks on the game, and I dislike not enjoying the conclusion of a game I paid full price for. But also because I was mostly getting into the story, it's just the game kept getting in the way of the story. Also I dislike the incredibly vague, and disjointed way the story was presented, as far as who was doing what, and why. The motivations of some of the characters just seems really disjointed, and contrary to what's going on. Maybe it's a translation problem, but it just seemed that I was being attacked by troops that were in service to a lord....who was helping me against those very troops....for no reason I could understand. I mean, just order your fucking Ashina troops not to try and constantly kill me Lord Isshin! Fuck!

I'm playing it through again, because my wife enjoyed the game, more than me apparently (she didn't have to play it, so I guess that tracks). We want to see the Return ending, so I'm working towards that. 2nd run is WAY faster, because I realized I don't have to fucking bother with like, 50% of the bosses in the game. I've already killed them, and got max prayer beads, so there is literally zero benefit to smashing my head against these bosses at this point. So I've been carving my way through the storyline in a fraction of the time of the first run. It did feel good beating Sparky Boy of Tomoe in that initial fight where he cuts off your arm, on round 2, I will admit that.

So far it's just working through the plot critical fights, to see how Return ending folds out. I suspect it's just going to be a handful of dialogue lines different, because this game just doesn't like actually giving story. Though to be fair, this isn't unique to From Soft, and just seems to be a common trend in a lot of Japanese titles.

I suspect to be as underwhelmed by that ending as I was with Severance. But hey, my wife seems to have enjoyed it more than me, so I'll plough through it, as she likes watching me play it, and as I said, seems to have enjoyed the story so far, more than me.

Also started playing ME: Andromeda about 2 days ago. I'm enjoying it. I really don't see what the hate is about this game, when comparing it to the OT. It's just as slow and talky at the start as ME 1 was, the combat is better than ME 1 overall, I have fucking verticality, which I forgot the game had, which is awesome. I like the premise of trying to rebuild colonies, etc. The cast is about as engaging as any of the originals. I know people have said "they're boring compared to the original cast" but come on, the OT had some duds as well. Jacob from ME 2, and that meat jock transfer from Gears of War in ME 3 are about as bland as they come. The Prothean DLC character is fairly dry and uninteresting IMO, as are plenty of the others. So I think it's an unfair comparison, I think it's more a rose tinted glasses thing for a lot of the OT.

I also saw someone else in this thread, say they weren't enjoying the fact that they were doing colony restoration stuff. I don't have a problem with that personally. I mean that is the job of the entire project. It's literally what they came all this way to do. If there hadn't been this big, terrible calamity, this is what they'd be doing. Trying to establish habitable zones. So I'm enjoying it, but I do admit I have a bias towards games with premises like "taking a shitty place, and fixing/healing it so it can be viable again."

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

On a whim decided to check out Patapon 2, knowing nothing about it. Had no idea it was a drum rhythm game. Seems cute and ok so far. Though it should be mentioned, if you limit your player character input name to only four measly characters, you really leave ppl like me no other choice...



The novelty will most certainly wear off, but not right now.





It's subtle ambiguity like this that makes it worthwhile.

 

[wings012]

Just finished Ender Lilies. Actually 100%-ed the game, making this the 2nd game in my Steam Library that I've done. Honestly not hard to 100% it, you just need to finish the game and do everything possible in the game. No need for weird challenges or replaying the game in a specific way or any of that crap. The only achievement I kinda went out of my way to get is getting to level 100. I was already at 95 by the time I was at the final boss and was done exploring all of the map so I thought, might as well.

I did find the game quite hard and frustrating at times. I think some of the enemy placement is a bit cheesy, and bosses could've probably used 20% less HP. But well, I had fun.

 

[Worgen]

Just finished Ender Lilies. Actually 100%-ed the game, making this the 2nd game in my Steam Library that I've done. Honestly not hard to 100% it, you just need to finish the game and do everything possible in the game. No need for weird challenges or replaying the game in a specific way or any of that crap. The only achievement I kinda went out of my way to get is getting to level 100. I was already at 95 by the time I was at the final boss and was done exploring all of the map so I thought, might as well.

I did find the game quite hard and frustrating at times. I think some of the enemy placement is a bit cheesy, and bosses could've probably used 20% less HP. But well, I had fun.

Weirdly enough, I was level 95 also when I beat the final boss then had to go back and grind a little. I thought the difficulty was pretty spot on, but I also tend to find most games too easy... well most games like that too easy. RTS game wise I tend to be solidly on normal difficulty.

 

[happyninja42]

Replaying HZD. Ranks high on my list of perfectly fine games I'm unlikely to replay because the beginning is such a slog. But now that I'm out and about I'm having fun with it. I should keep backups 2 or 3 hours into good games that take forever to get going. Last of Us, RDR2, GoW 4...

I actually liked the opening of the game for the most part. Running around as little Aloy was fun, and I enjoyed seeing how her simply having that device as a child, gave her such a MASSIVE advantage in development growing up. An adaptive, fully immersive, user friendly scanner/learning device, in the hands of an adaptive child, in the prime age for learning new concepts. Yeah, her having the super power of "being smarter than a fucking cave man" was entirely justified in my eyes.

I did find the rite of passage thingy a bit annoying, because I recall a couple of places along the "path" where it forced you down one route, and I'm screaming "yeah but I could just jump right THERE and this would be so much easier!" but it wasn't a route in yellow, so it was denied me.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I actually liked the opening of the game for the most part. Running around as little Aloy was fun, and I enjoyed seeing how her simply having that device as a child, gave her such a MASSIVE advantage in development growing up. An adaptive, fully immersive, user friendly scanner/learning device, in the hands of an adaptive child, in the prime age for learning new concepts. Yeah, her having the super power of "being smarter than a fucking cave man" was entirely justified in my eyes.

I did find the rite of passage thingy a bit annoying, because I recall a couple of places along the "path" where it forced you down one route, and I'm screaming "yeah but I could just jump right THERE and this would be so much easier!" but it wasn't a route in yellow, so it was denied me.

I'm not saying I didn't like it the first time around, but on replay I wanna get to hunting robot dinosaurs as soon as possible. I don't need the 3 hour tutorial about following a linear path anymore.

 

[happyninja42]

I'm not saying I didn't like it the first time around, but on replay I wanna get to hunting robot dinosaurs as soon as possible. I don't need the 3 hour tutorial about following a linear path anymore.

I'm talking about on replay myself, as I've replayed that game before. I still found the opening mostly enjoyable. I do agree that it can be a bit tedious at points, and it's much better once it gets to the whole open world bit.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I think NG+ in Horizon should just start after the trials are complete. The game doesn’t truly start until that point anyways in terms of gameplay.

 

[wings012]

Weirdly enough, I was level 95 also when I beat the final boss then had to go back and grind a little. I thought the difficulty was pretty spot on, but I also tend to find most games too easy... well most games like that too easy. RTS game wise I tend to be solidly on normal difficulty.

We're all good at different games. I have a friend that's playing too and he's having an easier time with the bosses. He's much more used to reading patterns, dodging and parrying. Our preferred spirits are also different, he uses the shield counter spirit a lot. I prefer to cheese things from range, spam poison gas and run away and stuff. He'd just practice a boss until he gets it, while I get triggered and end up exploring the map thoroughly for all the upgrades I can conceivably get before trying to overpower the boss. He's the sort to dodge and riposte in Dark Souls, while I'm the sort that gets the biggest shield he can hide behind and just normal-blocks stuff.

I think all the bosses in Ender Lilies provide a decent challenge, just the last two and maybe Hoenir are a bit of a pushover design-wise.

 

[Worgen]

We're all good at different games. I have a friend that's playing too and he's having an easier time with the bosses. He's much more used to reading patterns, dodging and parrying. Our preferred spirits are also different, he uses the shield counter spirit a lot. I prefer to cheese things from range, spam poison gas and run away and stuff. He'd just practice a boss until he gets it, while I get triggered and end up exploring the map thoroughly for all the upgrades I can conceivably get before trying to overpower the boss. He's the sort to dodge and riposte in Dark Souls, while I'm the sort that gets the biggest shield he can hide behind and just normal-blocks stuff.

I think all the bosses in Ender Lilies provide a decent challenge, just the last two and maybe Hoenir are a bit of a pushover design-wise.

I tended to swap between spirits, there weren't many that I didn't get some use out of. For bosses I tended to just keep going at them till I won, there were a few I just stomped but a good number that took a decent number of tries.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Genshin Impact is about to release its next major update, so once that hits I'll probably be deep-diving that for the next few days. In between I've started another game that I got from the last Steam sale, Remember Me. I haven't played a lot of it yet, but considering the low price I got it for, the hook of 'Arkham combat with God Hand custom combos' is more than enough to get started, at least. And I've heard it's not even that long, so it shouldn't take too much time away from Genshin.

 

[Dalisclock]

Beat the Salamander Divine Beast(Vah Rudania) in BOTW. I think I've overcome the games difficulty curve at this point, by getting and upgrading better armor, using the buffing meals and such, though I've probably spent way too much time finding upgrade materials for some of the armor bits(fireproof lizards can fuck off). I found out beedle sells some of the stuff you need but he only sells certain types of material depending on where you find him. It almost made me realize he's literally at every stable at the same time, because you can teleport to every stable in turn and HE'S AT ALL OF THEM. HOW DOES HE DO THAT? Yeah, I know video game but still.....

I died like a couple of times fighting thunderblight ganon, but the last two were pretty much one attempt victories and I rarely get killed anymore, even without giving a free revive from Miphas grace(AKA Mermaid Love revive). I'm also having some issues finding enough ancient enough cores to buy the ancient armor which is supposed to be good against guardians, so I'm trying to farm guardians to hopefully get an ancient core to drop randomly. They're easier to kill now that I have the Goron shield and I realized I can cut some of their legs off for the crawling ones and watch them flail helplessly, but still I'm getting tons of parts BUT the cores. At least I makes it easier to get ancient arrows.

Finally finished my house, which is fine but it's kind of annoying how to finish all the pieces of my house I have to tell them what to build, wait for them to do their stupid credo, then watch the lead carpenter slowly walk back to sit down before I can give him another order. It feels like it's designed for you doing them one at a time, but when all the upgrades after buying the house are 100 rupees I kinda wanted to just buy a bunch of upgrades at once.

Also, on a similar note, the Tarrey Town side quest is kinda cool but I feel it's not terribly well suited to getting it done as the game is progressing. So getting the wood isn't really that bad, since a lot of the stables have a bunch lying around for free and that's before you go chop down a small forest to feed the carpenters appetite. It's the fact you HAVE to find the people in the right order. By the time I found tarrey town, I've already did the Zora and the Rito towns, but the first one I have to go find is the Goron, who can only be found in Goron City on Death Mountain, which means dealing with the intense heat to get up there. The next involves finding a Gerudo, which is in the desert far to the SW, which I'm heading too now but there's ALSO a heat issue I need to deal with. And then presumably I can go recruit a Rito and a Zora for the town, but ti feels like it's built in probably the opposite order a first time player would be expected to do them in(the Zora and Rito domains are arguably easier to reach then the Goron and Gerudo ones).

On a lesser note, apparently both this and HZD came out at the same time and there were some fan wars over which one was the best at the time, which feels like so long ago and having played both games now, I feel they both have their good and bad points, but are different enough trying to directly compare them feels like, not so much apples and oranges but like two different types of well done meat. Both good but both good in their own way.