What are you currently playing?

[Dirty Hipsters]

Got back into playing Vermintide 2 with some friends.

I played it a bit back when it first came out, ran through the campaigns a couple of times, got the Witch Hunter to level 28, but the balance of the game wasn't great, leveling up took too long, and there just wasn't all that much content.

3 years later the game is much better. There's more campaigns and game modes, they fixed some of the balance issues, and some of the game modes don't depend on power level so the equipment drops don't matter making the game much more enjoyable.

Having a lot of fun with it. Having more fun with it than I was having with the Back 4 Blood beta, but I think they're kind of different games. Vermintide actually feels a lot like Left 4 Dead, except with special abilities and a much greater focus on melee. Back 4 Blood on the other hand feels like it's trying to be much more "tactical." The difficulty in Back 4 Blood is much more punishing, the friendly fire is more of an issue, health is at a premium and taking damage reduces your max health drastically, and you really need to have synergy with your team regarding the weapon types people use and your perk choices otherwise you'll get in each other's way and will always be low on ammo.

Vermintide isn't exactly a braindead arcade shooter. You need a lot of cooperation with your team, but it feels less punishing for not playing perfectly.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

More NMH3. I got the rest of the Death Glove Techniques while doing a boss battle. Suda does that thing where he does a bait and switch boss fight. Twice, and one right after the other. Black Knight (#8) gets killed by some dude from the future (who is most likely Travis's kid or grand kid). Vanishing Point (#7) gets killed by returning character from 2, Kimmy Howell. Now called Kimmy Love and a pop diva. Her boss battle I find definitely better here, than the 2nd game. Feels more polished and fun to fight her. Shame he had to die, but I guess they wanted to close loose end. I am sure there's going to be a couple of more bait and switch bosses before near the end of the game. On to fight Rank #6.

@PsychedelicDiamond, how do you feel about the game, just combat wise? I already read your non-spoiler review on my thread. I do feel this game has the best combat in the series. As far the entire line up of Grasshopper games where melee combat is the focus, I still give the slight edge to Killer Is Dead. NMH3 does make up it for with more variety and activities you can do of course.

What's your favorite enemy type or mini-boss? Mine are the dudes with the biker helmets and twin katanas. They remind me so much of the Dreamrunners minus the teleport spamming. I love Dark Stepping those guys!

I think overall my favourite miniboss was that one guy who with the laser guns that disable your chip skills. You know, the one with the robe and what seems like a deer skull on his head.

I am a bit dissapointed that the game pretty much stops introducing new regular enemies pretty much after the third boss. Up to that point, it had really decent enemy variety and I had hoped it would keep it up. Overall I like the combat. It doesn't have the polish of a Platinum game, which goes without saying, honestly, but for what it is it feels good and doesn't get old. Played on Spicy mode and it offered me a decent challenge, though I do think regular enemies are a bit too spongy, especially later on.

Other than that, it's missing some stuff like aerial combos and I don't really care about the mech suit. Even after finishing the game I don't have much of an idea what the tiger meter actually does and it's a shame you don't get different weapons with different movesets anymore. Basically, they expanded to combat in some ways, simplified it in others, but overall it is the best in the series.

 

[BrawlMan]

I am a bit dissapointed that the game pretty much stops introducing new regular enemies pretty much after the third boss. Up to that point, it had really decent enemy variety and I had hoped it would keep it up.

This nothing new for the series, and at least it has variety. You meet all of the enemy types by the third or fourth boss in 2, and 1 had eve less variety than that. I get what you mean, and they could have probably used two more. Other than elite versions of some basic enemies, that's all you get.

Overall I like the combat. It doesn't have the polish of a Platinum game, which goes without saying, honestly, but for what it is it feels good and doesn't get old. Played on Spicy mode and it offered me a decent challenge, though I do think regular enemies are a bit too spongy, especially later on.

I was not expecting that Platinum polish and wanted that Grasshopper jank. But not Lollipop Chainsaw jank thankfully. Also, this is why I always start on Normal. Which is now Bitter mode. That's always been a problem with Grasshopper games on higher difficulties. Enemies get heath and damage boost and that's about it.

Other than that, it's missing some stuff like aerial combos and I don't really care about the mech suit. Even after finishing the game I don't have much of an idea what the tiger meter actually does and it's a shame you don't get different weapons with different movesets anymore. Basically, they expanded to combat in some ways, simplified it in others, but overall it is the best in the series.

The lack of aerials I'll defend as it's never been Suda's nor the studio's strong suit. The closest they've gotten to doing that was Killer Is Dead where Mondo has two launcher moves that have to be bought first. The combat has always been grounded(-ish), but I get where you're coming from. At least you get dedicated jump and dodge button. I find it ironic that NMH3 has a jump button and God of War 4 does not. The lack weapon variety is a bit disappointing, but if you notice how you do Travis light and heavy attacks, his swords does transform to various sizes or turns in to a laser blade club. So it's like you're getting swords all rolled in to one. The Tiger Meter is your Tension Meter. The more you attack without taking a hit, the more damage you do to an opponent. They'll be easier to stun too. It's similar to the Ecstasy gauge minus going in to Dark Side mode.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Tomorrow, there's a new update for Genshin Impact coming out. I figure I can play that and Neo TWEWY (up to W2D5) together by putting pretty much everything else on the back burner until I either run out of new content in Genshin, at which point I'll go back to playing it for dailies, or for NTWEWY I'm not sure yet what point I'll stop at: the main story, the Secret Reports, or the platinum trophy. My only other platinum so far is for Ghost of Tsushima, but if I'm gonna go for it for any other game it may well be that one. At that point I should be able to pick another game back up, most likely Red Dead Redemption 2.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Should be a new thread: the next 5 games you should play!
Did you finish Breath Of the Wild? I still have the Wii U. I'll have to check to see if Hyrule Warriors is available for it.

I'm doing OK not buying new games... I just got an Oculus Quest 2 from the kids and have bought a ton for it. Been playing a ton of Arizona Sunshine with my future nephew in law to be and it is too much fun.

But (1st world problems) Epic games is giving 2 games away for PC on Thursdays. PS+ and Gold give me another 6 or so games a month. Very hard to focus on a given game.

And a good sale on No Man's Sky and Hades will likely break my no PC game buying.

I still pick up freebies because chances are they might not be again, but they sit in my library and I treat them as if they don’t exist (yet).

 

[gorfias]

I still pick up freebies because chances are they might not be again, but they sit in my library and I treat them as if they don’t exist (yet).

I've bought 3 games from Epic (World War Z, Death Stranding and Afterparty). The other 179 were free (1 or 2) every Thursday night. I think for around 2 weeks around Christmas it was a game a day. I am never getting around to them all!

 

[Worgen]

That reminds I bought MoH(2010) and then never got around to playing it. Nobody I knew ended up playing it either and I never hear anyone talk about it. Warfighter got a reputation for being awful when it dropped but the 2010 just kinda dropped off the map as soon as it came out, it felt like.

Which is probably one of the reasons I keep forgetting i even own it. It's wierd because this isn't some indie game that only I know or care about (God Knows I own plenty of those) but Medal of Honor, which basically spawned Call of Duty.

You didn't miss anything. I remember kind of enjoying it way back, but I tried to replay it when I was in a military shooter mood and couldn't even get past the first stage since it was just so boring and clunky. COD might get a lot of hate but they have their gameplay down really solid.

 

[Dalisclock]

I've bought 3 games from Epic (World War Z, Death Stranding and Afterparty). The other 179 were free (1 or 2) every Thursday night. I think for around 2 weeks around Christmas it was a game a day. I am never getting around to them all!

I've long since come to accept that fact. Someone pointed out that even if you could play video games all day, stopping only to eat and getting like 6 hours of sleep a night and had NO OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES, you'd never be able to play everything that exists(at least to any degree that matters) and even being much more picky than that you're still likely going to never play through every game you're interested in(unless your interests are incredibly limited or specific). Assuming an average lifespan in your country and you don't get hit by a car tomorrow that prevents you from doing much of anything or kills you, of course.

And accepting that fact is both sobering but also helped me to realize I should play the ones I want to play and enjoy and feel free to drop when I'm not enjoying them. I still slip back into the "Games are a checklist" mentality and I have to realize I'm doing it and shake myself out of it.

I mean, I spent months playing little else but Red Dead 2 last year and a similar amount of time on BOTW this year while I could have been playing through numerous other games in that time period instead, I really did enjoy both games enough I don't consider the time spent to be wasted.

 

[meiam]

So I started playing cyberpunk 2077 and, it's good, like really good. Dunno how much it changed in the last year but I only encountered minor bug, mostly visual glitch and a few annoying gameplay one, like body behaving weirdly (one of them dropped trough the floor and alerted a guard on the floor below) but nothing gamebreaking.

I have the unpopular opinion that witcher 2/3 were pretty boring (great writing stuck between long session of very dull gameplay and environment) but CP2077 has fun gameplay, it's kinda like an immersive sim (dishonored, system shock) -lite version mixed with an RPG and gta style open world. Night city is pretty damn amazing, the amount of assets they created for the game is astounding, there must be over 100 unique form of advertising which makes it really fun to just go walk around the world and look around most corner (it help that they spread quite a lot of loot all over the world). Gameplay is suitably hard on the highest difficulty setting which means getting rewards (loot, crafting mats, perk point) feel meaningful. Because most activity happens in the middle of a densely packed city (as opposed to empty wilderness a la far cry) the open world aspect really shine, you can generally find a close rooftop or something nearby to scout out location properly and find alternate entry way.

Sadly the game is full of features that were obviously cut, my main disappointment is the lack of public transport, its obvious that at some point the game was supposed to have these skyline/metro system which would have given some really nice vista and be much more immersive as a form of fast travel, but those had to be cut. There's also some aspect that aren't anywhere near as polish as they should be, stealth is pretty half ass, once an enemy is alerted they never go back to their regular behavior so you essentially have only one chance to stealth an area. Also stealth is actively punished, you get less exp for stealth non lethal takedown than shooting and enemy don't drop their gun, meaning skillfully taking down an entire complex worth of enemy without alert and no kill is literally worse (reward wise) than running in gun/sword blazing and killing everything. The game is also wayyyyyyyyyyy too generous with healing, you can quickly heal to full life using consumable that are incredibly common, so constantly being shoot is more of an annoyance than anything.

But yeah good game, I hope they make DLC for it set in the city rather than new location and use the saved time on polishing system and resurecting mothball featured. I'd especially like some long form quest chain in teh form ocean 11 heist, where you'd carefully pick your target, recruit a team (maybe with multiple option for all positions), make a plan and execute it.

 

[Dalisclock]

Finally finished Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.

I did enjoy it but glad to be finished with it. As with before, the final battles in the game are quite big and tend to get nuts after a while. There are a couple things that kind of annoyed me. One is that it's really clear by the end they only have so many enemy types and you pretty much see different variations on the same few enemies(especially boss type enemies). Oh, There's a Moblin, Oh, a Hinox, oh look, Guardians! And then it's just "Electric, Fire, Ice and finally Malice" versions of said monsters and I mean, okay, it just feels a bit samey after a while because aside from different attacks and weakness to wands it's just....the same dude. Also, in the penultimate mission, it pulls this gimmick where you have to take down 4 boss monsters to open the way to attack the castle. Except, once you take most of them out.....BLOOD MOON! and then they all respawn. And once you've taken them out a second time....BLOOD MOON AGAIN! Though this time it spawns only half the bosses again.

As a gimmick it was interesting ONCE. When you have to refight the same bosses a second time(unless I fucked up and it's on a timer or something for the 2nd one), it's tiresome and feels like the game is wasting my damn time.

Now that that's out of the way, I did really like how the game FINALLY gives Zelda a chance to lead the charge for once and have a moment of heroism for herself....a moment 35 years in the making(unless this happened in one of the earlier games I haven't played yet) and she kicks ass during the final battle. I also love how all the heros get to proudly face down ganon together near the end, which feels quite cathartic knowing what happened to them In the original timeline. This really feels like "What If......The heros didn't get caught with their pants down and proceeded to kick major ass".

Anyway, I did notice I once I finished the game a bunch of more missions and side quests popped up but now that I've finished the story I don't feel any particular reason to keep playing at this point, so I'm calling it good.

 

[BrawlMan]

I beat Dark Princess #5, and she does not die. Travis spares her, because he is friends with her boyfriend. Who is from a completely different Suda 51 game I have never played. Travis gets another mech transformation added to his roulette slot after beating the boss. It's like a devil trigger of sorts, but you have to activate by getting 777. Four more to go. I find easier to just keeping selling the items I got from challenge missions and designated fights, as I'll be ahead of the required money amount. Completely kills most of the grind.

 

[Worgen]

Hedon Bloodrite finally launched so I've been playing it, only a couple levels into it though, the second one took me like 2 hours. Huge map. Really cool so far, tore me away from Quake after beating Disillusions of Eternity on nightmare. Still need to beat the 2 new campaigns in it, but they can wait till after Hedon.

 

[happyninja42]

Finally finished Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity.

I did enjoy it but glad to be finished with it. As with before, the final battles in the game are quite big and tend to get nuts after a while. There are a couple things that kind of annoyed me. One is that it's really clear by the end they only have so many enemy types and you pretty much see different variations on the same few enemies(especially boss type enemies). Oh, There's a Moblin, Oh, a Hinox, oh look, Guardians! And then it's just "Electric, Fire, Ice and finally Malice" versions of said monsters and I mean, okay, it just feels a bit samey after a while because aside from different attacks and weakness to wands it's just....the same dude. Also, in the penultimate mission, it pulls this gimmick where you have to take down 4 boss monsters to open the way to attack the castle. Except, once you take most of them out.....BLOOD MOON! and then they all respawn. And once you've taken them out a second time....BLOOD MOON AGAIN! Though this time it spawns only half the bosses again.

As a gimmick it was interesting ONCE. When you have to refight the same bosses a second time(unless I fucked up and it's on a timer or something for the 2nd one), it's tiresome and feels like the game is wasting my damn time.

I don't recall that at all, but details like that don't tend to stick with me very well. I think there might be a timer to it? I don't recall 2 respawns during the final fight but *shrugs*

Now that that's out of the way, I did really like how the game FINALLY gives Zelda a chance to lead the charge for once and have a moment of heroism for herself....a moment 35 years in the making(unless this happened in one of the earlier games I haven't played yet) and she kicks ass during the final battle. I also love how all the heros get to proudly face down ganon together near the end, which feels quite cathartic knowing what happened to them In the original timeline. This really feels like "What If......The heros didn't get caught with their pants down and proceeded to kick major ass".

YES! Very much this for me! That's one reason I liked playing Zelda at that point. At first I was sort of miffed about having to work another character, but once they force you to play as her that first time, as a tutorial, once she's unsealed, I was won over. She was great fun, and I think the voice actress for her, did a good job giving her a confident, determined, leader demeanor in her voice, once she shed the Insecure Princess trope, and became a Battle Princess.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Companies started using the word "beta" to just describe polished demos that are out a couple of weeks before the game is released. They weren't real betas because there was never any time to actually change anything from the release of the beta to the final version of the game. Companies would just call them betas so that players would think they actually have input on some final design decisions or balance.

So because of that actual betas, where stuff might still be glitchy and unpolished because it's actively being worked on, are being called alphas. Because when people expect a beta now they expect a mostly polished experience, but an alpha is still expected to be kind of janky.

Actual alphas are called "early access" now and you pay to play them.

Ah, sorry, didn't notice the reply till now! Yeah, that is true, I should've elaborated initially that there is nothing to seperate other game "betas" that are essentially pre-release demos to the COD: Vanguard "alpha." Both are generally polished and functional with about the same sort of distance from release date and can be played with pretty much no issues, so that's the main confusion I have with it. If they didn't slap an "alpha" on it, I would have assumed without doubt it was a typical "beta" like all the other demos.

 

[happyninja42]

Been playing GoT: Iki Island lately, and it's fun. So far, it's just more of the same GoT. Which might sound like it's underwhelming, but it's not. I really loved GoT, so "it's as good as a game I really loved, because it's more of that thing I loved" is about as accurate as I can make it.

It's got the same flaws as the base game. The parkour/climbing physics can be a bit janky as fuck sometimes, and given it's very linear in how it wants you to traverse these climbing puzzles, I find it so strange that they make it so easy to miss a leap/grab. I mean you are 100% dependent on the game magnetizing you to the spot you generally aimed for, because that's how you do things like hop onto the tops of poles, or onto planks to shimmy across. There is no button to "grab", so, the fact that you can so easily just...NOT grab, when you are clearly right up against the object in question, is a bit frustrating. That's probably my biggest complaint, the still janky parkour/climbing physics. It's not enough to make me rage quit, but it's made me get pissed quite a few times at the screen for something entirely out of my control.

Story wise, it's pretty interesting so far. Jin has returned to Iki Island. A location that a group of Mongols have set up base at, that also happens to be an Important Location From His Past. So now Jin must deal with the ghosts of his past, and the current Mongol threat, on an island that does NOT like him at all, since he's a samurai.
The way the game handles the flashbacks are really nice. I won't go into details, but it's blended very nicely with the current events, and feels very organic. It reminded me of a lot of events that I had forgotten from my first playthrough, so it was a nice callback.

This content is REALLY meant to be played AFTER you beat the main game though. I've run into 2 different times when the game makes reference to events from the base game...that I currently haven't done at this point with this save file. The one I can recall currently is Jin stating that he defeated Khotun Khan...the final badguy of the base game. Well....I haven't beaten him yet at this point so....yeaaaah....oops So there is a bit of a narrative hiccup there. I also ran into another example of this sort of writing hiccup, though it's not related to base game, but the DLC itself.

So, for reasons related to the plot, Jin is on Iki island incognito. He is working with some people who don't know he is a member of clan Sakai. Later on in the storyline, it's revealed he is Lord Sakai, and one of the people he's been working with, is a bit miffed. Jin keeps saying "you need to keep this to yourself! Noone can know who I am! It will bring up too much bad blood! We have to work together!" And, I mean I agree in theory, but there is oooone teeny, tiny problem. One of the side missions, is all about him openly declaring who he is, and claiming a clan relic lost from the initial invasion 15 years ago. I mean it's NOT subtle, and the main story NPC is a dude, established as being the local STORYTELLER for a rather large community of villagers. Soooo....I fear this whole plan of "keep it quiet" is dead in the water Jin by your own actions!

Little things like that aside, it's been fun. The combat is harder, they've introduced a new enemy that really makes things much nastier for Jin, and shuffles around target priority no matter how you handle combat. The missions are fun, the new side content about playing the flute for the animals to bond with them is a neat new component, that's mechanically neat, and thematically enjoyable.

It's good content IMO. I wish there were more new skills, as I've only unlocked one so far, for the horse. Nothing for Jin though. Not sure if it's just hidden behind more story development, or if Jin just has no new tricks at all. The horse one is pretty fucking awesome though, not gonna lie.

But the new charms they introduced with the DLC are pretty awesome, and add a lot of new versatility to how you approach combat. It's more solid content, on par with the main game IMO.

If you like GoT, you should like Iki Island. I would strongly recommend waiting until after you've finished the base game on whatever save file you play it. Partly for the improved stats and gear, etc, but also just to make the various dialogue feel more smooth.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Over the Weekend I beat Death Crown and it's DLC

It's a simple RTS game that describes itself as a 1 bit RTS. It manages to show how something fairly simple can become quite deep and complex as you only had 3 buildings, your farm / mine, your barracks and a tower and you don't produce unit types just fighters. It's almost like a tower defence game in the end but the way you win is expanding to capture black crystals that power up your troops and then you can push through the enemies defences, while they're trying to do the same to you.

Story wise it was pretty cool.

The Prequel story is about a warrior who finds out the Lord of Death is real and is causes havoc in the kingdom so you fight through the supernatural entities and stuff with your armies and kill the Lord of Death.

The Main campaign is the warrior has become king and is old now. Knowing death will come for him and having learned of the supernatural world he uses the resources he has available as royalty to set and trap for the spirit of Death who will come for him. In this case the Princess Death. Preventing her from taking him and banishing her from his castle you play through as the Princess Death trying to take down the arcane rituals and constructs protecting the king so you can end his life.

The DLC campaign sees a demon faction rise to challenge the Princess Death.

It was pretty good except for the one DLC mission which all relies on RNG. You can open chests by capturing them and there's a 50:50 chance it will give you 40 gold or explode destroying your nearby buildings. The problem being it's a boss fight level so the enemy base has special abilities. In this case if one of you buildings is destroyed then it will raise a catacombs wall in it's place and you can't attack via that path again until you destroy the wall, but the enemies troops can pass through the wall. So you potentially lose the cost of a a building (25 gold minimum) you then have the hex blocked so you can't build there until you destroy the wall which also diverts troops from attacking the enemy and the chests block the black crystal resource nodes you need to power up so you have to take the gamble and hope you get lucky.

 

[BrawlMan]

I beat NMH III. I'll add my full thoughts later in my thread. My God.....what an ending and finale.

 

[BrawlMan]

My final thoughts have been posted. Warning: I have spoilers that are marked.

No More Heroes III

Travis has a Devil Trigger, except it's a armored powered Mecha.

forums.escapistmagazine.com

 

[Worgen]

The expansion for Hedon, Bloodrite finally launched and I'm playing through it and holy shit is it good. I loved the first episode of Hedon but Bloodrite is even better. More better defined characters, a cool hub world type system (at least for the place I was before) More allies that will fight with you, new weapons and more enemy types with even more elaborate levels to run around. Just awesome, go buy it. Yes I am going to link it again.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I just finished the second week in Neo: The World Ends With you, and the story has started going off the rails. In a good way - it's not like it's incomprehensible or anything - just that it's getting completely insane. Don't want to say too much even though I'm certain I'm the only person on this forum with any interest in the game, but I'm definitely hyped up to see where the next (and probably final, based on the previous game's structure) arc goes.