What are you currently playing?

[Zykon TheLich]

Retrying borderlands 2 a bit in prep for borderlands 3 I got free off epic.
I think I must have restarted in true vault hunter mode because suddenly my progress on the dlcs is back to zero, and I definitely finished them all.
It's not as cool as first time round, but I'm enjoying it. Makes me hopeful for 3.

Also a bit of black desert online. 3rd best action combat in an mmo that I'be played, world feels a bit too 'designed' and pristine, as do the characters, but it's at an acceptable level of animu/eastern RPG.
A lot of items to clog you inventory that look like they might be useful but you can't quite tell. Couple with small inventory, zoned storage banks and no fast travel and inventory management is a chore. I'm sure it's to get you to buy cash shop inventory expansions etc
But... it's alright. It cost me about £5 so I'm not going to complain too loudly.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

I finished Serious Sam Siberian mayhem then started playing Serious Sam 4 since I heard really just good things about Siberian Mayhem but kinda middling things about Serious Sam 4. I'm so damn annoyed at those people. Sure Siberian Mayhem is awesome but so is Serious Sam 4. It really is a return to form after SS3 kinda deviated from things and took forever to give those nice big hordes. The music is great, the story is a much more fun then it was in SS3, plus the writing has some legit funny stuff. Not to mention some new really overpowered weapons. Looking at you chainsaw.

Hm, strange coincidence as I was just deliberating over whether to buy this game as I came across your comment. And, while am not saying I'm easily swayed by random comments online during moments of anxious hesitation, the game has now somehow curiously ended up nestling within my hard drive all of a sudden.

 

[Worgen]

Hm, strange coincidence as I was just deliberating over whether to buy this game as I came across your comment. And, while am not saying I'm easily swayed by random comments online during moments of anxious hesitation, the game has now somehow curiously ended up nestling within my hard drive all of a sudden.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

 

[FakeSympathy]

I have decided to play through the entire Witcher trilogy. I never played W1, beaten W2 only once on xbox 360, then beaten W3 bunch of times on xb1 and later pc. I wanted to know if my perspective of W3 would change if I transferred saves and observe the changes made in each game.

I have just beaten W1 the other day and started W2. While playing these games, I’m working on a review for all three games that reflects my experience. I’ll definitely make a thread about it.

For now, all I can say is I don’t want to play W1 again. Which is a shame because i like the story and the setting of the first game

 

[Bartholen]

About 40 hours into Elden Ring, and my brain's pretty much mush at this point. I just can't get over how mind-bogglingly fuck-off-huge this game is. I feel like I'm not even halfway through. There are easily missable areas that have as much effort put into them as entire games. The sheer scale of it all just continues to impress. One might also think that 7 games in Fromsoft would have gone through every enemy concept to creep players out, but nope, not true. I'll probably shut up about it for now, because there's only so many ways you can phrase the same gushing over and over.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

About 40 hours into Elden Ring, and my brain's pretty much mush at this point. I just can't get over how mind-bogglingly fuck-off-huge this game is. I feel like I'm not even halfway through. There are easily missable areas that have as much effort put into them as entire games. The sheer scale of it all just continues to impress. One might also think that 7 games in Fromsoft would have gone through every enemy concept to creep players out, but nope, not true. I'll probably shut up about it for now, because there's only so many ways you can phrase the same gushing over and over.

A lot of people’s biggest problem with it is the reused boss encounters and balancing, but it’s kinda par for the course with open world stuff. When considering how many dozens of unique bosses there are in spite of it, and that the vast majority of repeats are optional for completionists and build experimentation it’s still an exceptional effort.

Balancing is another issue but again, how to go about that with so many variations of builds, progression, etc. would be an exercise in futility. Melania is one example of bs that can still piss off though. There has been a lot of legitimate criticism leveled at her ignoring some of the game’s rules the player is subject to.

I’m glad FROM made a game like this for something new, even though it has introduced other shortcomings as a result. The earlier games are always there for tighter design, and this takes nothing away from them. I’d say the issues with completing some quests are the biggest remaining problem. All we can do is hope they keep patching them up.

 

[Worgen]

About 40 hours into Elden Ring, and my brain's pretty much mush at this point. I just can't get over how mind-bogglingly fuck-off-huge this game is. I feel like I'm not even halfway through. There are easily missable areas that have as much effort put into them as entire games. The sheer scale of it all just continues to impress. One might also think that 7 games in Fromsoft would have gone through every enemy concept to creep players out, but nope, not true. I'll probably shut up about it for now, because there's only so many ways you can phrase the same gushing over and over.

Took me like 160 hours for my first play though, I did do a lot of messing around, but I wouldn't be surprised if your first play was at least 120 hours, assuming you aren't just rushing.

 

[Dalisclock]

About 40 hours into Elden Ring, and my brain's pretty much mush at this point. I just can't get over how mind-bogglingly fuck-off-huge this game is. I feel like I'm not even halfway through. There are easily missable areas that have as much effort put into them as entire games. The sheer scale of it all just continues to impress. One might also think that 7 games in Fromsoft would have gone through every enemy concept to creep players out, but nope, not true. I'll probably shut up about it for now, because there's only so many ways you can phrase the same gushing over and over.

Quite a few of the Dungeons are completely optional. Assuming you're only getting two runes needed to enter the capitol, that leaves at least one Legacy Dungeon you can totally not bother with(though its totally worth it to do them, IMHO). I'm currently messing around in two other optional dungeons, one of which is possibly the hardest FROM area to even reach I've yet to come across, and that's assuming you even know how to reach it in the first place and aren't going in blind( Namely The Haligtree ).

And don't get me started on the Underground. That area, while not as complex, as the legacy dungeons, is still a lot of map.

 

[wings012]

Got roped into V Rising by some friends but I'm not sure about it. There's some good ideas but it's stupidly grindy. You need absurd amounts of materials for anything so you'll just be smashing trees and rocks all days. It also does that dumb Valheim thing where you can't bring resources through teleporters. Just seems a little too disrespectful of the player's time.

 

[Bartholen]

A lot of people’s biggest problem with it is the reused boss encounters and balancing, but it’s kinda par for the course with open world stuff. When considering how many dozens of unique bosses there are in spite of it, and that the vast majority of repeats are optional for completionists and build experimentation it’s still an exceptional effort.

Balancing is another issue but again, how to go about that with so many variations of builds, progression, etc. would be an exercise in futility. Melania is one example of bs that can still piss off though. There has been a lot of legitimate criticism leveled at her ignoring some of the game’s rules the player is subject to.

I’m glad FROM made a game like this for something new, even though it has introduced other shortcomings as a result. The earlier games are always there for tighter design, and this takes nothing away from them. I’d say the issues with completing some quests are the biggest remaining problem. All we can do is hope they keep patching them up.

The balancing issue is true. Right next to the capital entrance, which is the latest area I've entered, are two optional dungeons. One had a boss I literally killed in 3 hits, the other had two Crucible Knights, and was one of the few fights in the game so far where I went "nope" and decided to come back later.

 

[Ezekiel]

Good lord, I don't remember the cutscenes in Alien: isolation looking THIS awful. Like they ran it through the lowest settings in Handbrake.

Thinking they went a little too far with dressing up old tech or didn't do it half as well as the filmmakers. Spotted an item that looked exactly like a big printer. The batteries for the flashlight look very much like current batteries. Those are so abundant, they should have just made the light unlimited.

Overall, too simplistic, the progression. Baby puzzles. A constant objective pointer because the level design/progression isn't solid enough to move the player along on its own.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

The balancing issue is true. Right next to the capital entrance, which is the latest area I've entered, are two optional dungeons. One had a boss I literally killed in 3 hits, the other had two Crucible Knights, and was one of the few fights in the game so far where I went "nope" and decided to come back later.

I had something similar just last night in Nokron City. The Great Enemy of the area went down pretty easily, because It kinda of just…disappeared when its health bar was around 50%. Whether there was a phase transition where it randomly fell into an abyss or it glitched out and hara kiri’d itself, idk but I’ll take the W.

Then later on there’s not one, but two gargoyles, and the first made quick enough work of my +5 jellyfish summon to make me nope out of there until a much higher level.

 

[Bartholen]

Just beat Rykard in Elden Ring. One of the coolest boss designs Fromsoft has ever created. I also can't wait for the "soul level 1 punch only Rykard no damage no healing" attempts some mad folks will inevitably try.

 

[laggyteabag]

Just replaying Mass Effect 2, and whilst I enjoy this game, it does lack focus.

For example, did you know this game only really has 6 main missions? You've got the Prologue, Freedom's Progress, Horizon, the Collector Ship, the Reaper IFF, and then the Suicide Mission.

The vast majority of the game is comprised of either squadmate recruitment missions, or loyalty missions; neither of which really have much to do with either the Reapers, or the Collectors.

Then, when you also take into account that ME3 basically did nothing with a couple of the plot threads that ME2 left open, it really feels like a major narrative detour, sandwiched in between the "OMG, the Reapers are coming/here!" storylines of the first and last game.

I can appreciate that this is definitely more of a character-driven story than the other two games, but when you are stuck in Act 2, doing little more than back-to-back loyalty missions for hours, it really does make me desperate to get to Mass Effect 3.

 

[meiam]

Just replaying Mass Effect 2, and whilst I enjoy this game, it does lack focus.

For example, did you know this game only really has 6 main missions? You've got the Prologue, Freedom's Progress, Horizon, the Collector Ship, the Reaper IFF, and then the Suicide Mission.

The vast majority of the game is comprised of either squadmate recruitment missions, or loyalty missions; neither of which really have much to do with either the Reapers, or the Collectors.

Then, when you also take into account that ME3 basically did nothing with a couple of the plot threads that ME2 left open, it really feels like a major narrative detour, sandwiched in between the "OMG, the Reapers are coming/here!" storylines of the first and last game.

I can appreciate that this is definitely more of a character-driven story than the other two games, but when you are stuck in Act 2, doing little more than back-to-back loyalty missions for hours, it really does make me desperate to get to Mass Effect 3.

I'm both fine and not fine about the story having almost no missions and most of it being side story about character. More main story mission could have fleshed out the plot more, but at the same time ME2 is when the story started really sucking in anticipation of ME3, so I'm pretty sure more main quest would just have made me dislike the story more.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

For now, all I can say is I don’t want to play W1 again. Which is a shame because i like the story and the setting of the first game

But have you ever played the pre-v1.5 (enhanced) W1? As bad as W1 is it's still a massive improvement over the original release version.

 

[FakeSympathy]

But have you ever played the pre-v1.5 (enhanced) W1? As bad as W1 is it's still a massive improvement over the original release version.

I did love the theme and story of W1, but gameplay was something that I didn't want to go through again. I can't imagine gameplay being worse that what I sat through

 

[Worgen]

I grabbed Drainus since I have enjoyed the other games Team Ladybug has made.

So far its quite fun, although not as hard as I was expecting, but then again, I'm used to Asian shoot em ups being more of the super hard bullet hell variety, not ones that are still kinda bullet hell, but with a really good counter for said hell of bullets. The graphics are great, the story is... not bad, but not exactly the most enthralling story I've seen in a shootemup. Its no ZeroRanger, but its still quite good, although I have a feeling it won't really be that long. But, the same has gone for all of their games. They are usually a bit shorter then you want, but in shortstackness they have greatness.

 

[BrawlMan]

Guardian Heroes again. I got the final boss where you fight Golden Silver in one path, Super Zur in another, and the standard path where you fight only hell in the last stage. I am not gonna bother with the dark variants of certain ending. I've done them before, and rather deal with again.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Finished Dandara. Never playing this game again. The final boss Tormenta is infuriating and exacerbated everything I barely tolerated about the combat system throughout the rest of the game. Every time you take damage you lose your footing and you're granted just enough time to recover it but not enough to actually move out of danger's way. In a confined space such as the final boss's lair this means a single hit could easily cost you the whole fight - it's too easy to get stunlocked, and the RNG mean there's only so much pattern recognition can help. To make things even worse, the boss has slightly more HP than the bar lets you know. So it will appear as depleted even when you're half a dozen strikes away from actually beating the thing. Damn if I didn't rage this hard in a while.

I liked the rest of the game fine, but knowing now what awaits at the end I never want to play it again.