What are you currently playing?

[thebobmaster]

One thing I will say in way of warning about Persona 5 is that it does get into some heavy stuff pretty early on in the game. There's nothing explicit, and it's pretty much all done through subtext and implication, but if you are uncomfortable with anything dealing with subjects like abuse of power or sexual assault, Persona 5 may upset you pretty early on.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Got through another run in Hades, though I haven't reached the actual 'ending' yet; that requires you to clear a certain number of runs in total first. Think I'm finally getting the hang of avoiding the final boss's attacks, though I still don't have a positive W/L ratio for that fight.

Pro tip: Wherever possible, go for offensive upgrades over defensive ones. Can't get hurt if all your enemies are dead, and the faster you can clear rooms and shred bosses, the less chance there is that you'll lose your rhythm and get blown up.

 

[laggyteabag]

I have just been really enjoying card games/auto battlers recently, and whilst I do really enjoy Hearthstone, I have been hearing from just about everyone that Riot's offerings are far superior to Blizzard's, so I have been checking those out.

And I must say that Legends of Runeterra, which is Riot's League of Legends card game, completely blows Hearthstone out of the water in terms of sheer production values. Hearthstone really looks amateurish by comparison.

Otherwise, I am still getting to grips with LoR's mechanics. Learning a new card game, with all of the different keywords is quite a lot to wrap my head around, but I am slowly getting to grips with it, and I do appreciate some of the additions and changes.

One thing that I have really appreciated between Hearthstone and LoR, though, is the mobile ports. It is really great to be able to play these games wherever I am, and it really shows the potential of mobile gaming. One of my biggest gripes with a lot of mobile games is just that most of them only let you play for a few minutes at a time, before bombarding you with adverts. These don't, and it is definitely appreciated.

Its just a shame though, that both Hearthstone and LoR both offer their own Battlepasses, which really disincentivises playing different games. I definitely have the feeling that I am going to need to pick one or the other, sooner or later.

 

[lostinreality]

Well, well if it isn't that new nft game I wanted to check out a couple of months ago, still looking good and waiting for Sir Iforgot. It's back and it brought friends while I'm still and again and forever playing Diablo...

 

[Gordon_4]

Dragon Age Inquisition

I am one of the few mutants upon this planet who really liked this game, with the very heavy caveat that some of its design was informed by listening to what was bitched about in Dragon Age II and possibly taking the wrong lessons. The most obvious example is the Hinterlands; holy fucking Christ is that place HUGE. So huge in fact that I'm positive the impetus for it was not a desire to make a large expansive zone with lots do do and see but someone who really got bent out of shape about people saying how small DAII was and spent the whole time designing it screaming "YOU FUCKERS WANT BIG? I'LL SHOW YOU BITCHES BIG". Its other issue that not wishing to influence the player much they've deliberately left you without much direction for the main plot and your position along it. Tales about of players spending hours in the Hinterlands, when it turns out that at most to kick off the main plot maybe two hours, if that, is required.

Fortunately once you DO that and get to Skyhold, a sequence I still rate as one of the series best, the game comes into its own because that's when the romances, the epic plot, and the companion missions start opening up.

And I'll be honest, the companions really are a highlight - bar one - for Inquisition. Cassandra was on my list of must haves after my first play through of DAII was done, Varric was always welcome (and is tied to some of the plot obviously) so that goes without saying. Solas is a difficult character to talk about without spoilers but he is interesting and not full of sanctimony and self-loathing like other mages. Iron Bull is a hoot who bounces off basically everyone in one amusing way or another but there's definitely some layers to him that aren't obvious at first glance. Vivienne is sass and class (and occasionally murder) in one hand, and caviar and champagne in the other. Blackwall is cool; like Solas a lot of his story is a spoiler but in the end I felt he came as good as he was going to get. But I saved the best until last:

Dorian Pavus; just drink in this magnificent, pea-cocking, razor witted fireballing mother fucker. This guy is a fucking treasure and you will want to take him as many places as possible. His only downside is that his personal quest starts just fine but kind of drives off the road at the end.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

People don't like DA:I? I thought people liked that game! I liked that game. It was the firt Dragon Age I completed. Sure it has its problems but with these kinds of games you're kind of signing up for problems with mechanics, pacing, etc in order to experience the story, campaign, world-building, and characters. And I loved it! I got me to finally complete one full play-through of Origins (but I'm not touching DA2, two of these games are enough for me).

Speaking of being fed up with games, I'm taking a break. My GamePass subscription was up for renewal and I'm kind of not into any specific thing, having completed Tinykin and Lost in Random (and really liking both).

I tried to replay Ori and the Blind Forest, a game I got half way through and quit on the Switch because my hands were literally in pain. I love the game's art, style, and core vibe so much, but the combination of difficult platforming and metroidvania maze thing of running around the same places over and over again gets annoying. So I figured I'd try it again but with the superior XBox controller and on Easy mode this time (annoyingly, this game doesn't let you change difficulty after you start).
And I just... can't. You go here and it's blocked, you go back there and you can't jump that high, you go the other place and the enemies respawn... metroidvanias are so freaking annoying why do people like this. Ugh. I've liked some too just not in the mood for that crap right now.

Then I installed Assassins Creed Origins because I do like those games and it's my go-to dumb time-killer map clearing games. But then I just thought of the big map and got tired.

It's time to take a week off of gaming. Next week Metal Hellsinger and that Hardship Spacejunk (or whatever it's called) come to GamePass, those seem cool.

 

[gorfias]

My kids paid $60 for Destiny I back in the day. I don't think it even works anymore. Then I got Destiny 2 on Epic with some loot. I tried it this AM. Starts a lot like Destiny 1. You got that little robot critter with you as in 1 but I don't think it is Peter Dinklage anymore. I must have to get into the game before anything feels new. Very pretty game and I like the action. Looks easy to play, difficult to master. Wild that this IP that cost $0.5 Billion to start is free now. Does make me want to try WarFrame again to compare and contrast. I did some screen shots... trying to find where they went now!

 

[thebobmaster]

My kids paid $60 for Destiny I back in the day. I don't think it even works anymore. Then I got Destiny 2 on Epic with some loot. I tried it this AM. Starts a lot like Destiny 1. You got that little robot critter with you as in 1 but I don't think it is Peter Dinklage anymore. I must have to get into the game before anything feels new. Very pretty game and I like the action. Looks easy to play, difficult to master. Wild that this IP that cost $0.5 Billion to start is free now. Does make me want to try WarFrame again to compare and contrast. I did some screen shots... trying to find where they went now!

I'd have to look up the new actor, and can't be bothered, but yeah, they replaced Peter Dinklage as Ghost after vanilla Destiny. There's debate about whether it was actually the official reason (schedule conflicts) or if it was because Peter Dinklage just sounded bored and not really all that enthusiastic about the role.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

You got that little robot critter with you as in 1 but I don't think it is Peter Dinklage anymore.

There's debate about whether it was actually the official reason (schedule conflicts) or if it was because Peter Dinklage just sounded bored and not really all that enthusiastic about the role.

IIRC, the new voice of the Ghost is Nolan "I'm in every game" North.

 

[meiam]

People don't like DA:I? I thought people liked that game! I liked that game. It was the firt Dragon Age I completed. Sure it has its problems but with these kinds of games you're kind of signing up for problems with mechanics, pacing, etc in order to experience the story, campaign, world-building, and characters. And I loved it! I got me to finally complete one full play-through of Origins (but I'm not touching DA2, two of these games are enough for me).

Imo its by far the worst of the trilogy. The gameplay was severely downgraded, you can't give the company custom order anymore, instead you have to rely on the dumb AI (mage will cleanse debuff off enemy, archer will walk into melee range to use ability, etc). Removing healing was a good idea in theory but in practice it doesn't work because its so easy to give everyone massive shield.

Story wise its an absolute mess, massive events are introduce and solved in the same quest line. You have to decide who win the civil war 15 minutes after having meet the leader of both side (not that it matters anyway). The mage V templar plotline is awkwardly resolved, almost just to shove it out of the way because they had to. The game is also infatuated with Liliana, its clear the writter though she was the main character and you're just the awkward side kick, but she's so uninteresting.

The open area are cool, but they severely lack interesting stuff to do in them so they feel barren and empty, its pretty clear they were making an mmo that they awkwardly converted down.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

I think what I really liked about DA:I was how you're supposed to do sort of "side" quests in order to build up your allies' strength enough for the final push. And I just liked the characters whose name I all forget but the knight guy and the crusader lady and I also did a lesbian romance with the manager lady.
I mean sure the story of Origins is better, I don't think anyone disputes that, but I hate turn based combat and Inquisition at least let me directly hit things with a sword or whatever.
I never played 2 because as much as I liked the others, I didn't love them and everyone said 2 is the worst and I just didn't feel the need to do that. I watched a little gameplay and it looked like the dude is running around the same brown streets for 5 hours and just kill me. I'm sure there's some good stuff in there but I'm long past the mood of slogging through that kind of tedium to find out when I can play Bloodroots and actually have fun.

I think if I played inquisition now I wouldn't like it either, but at the time it was good.

Dragon Age 4 will be a huge wait and see for me- I'm going to read a lot of reviews to see if it's worth my time.

 

[BrawlMan]

Axel on Mania+ Arcade Mode is done! I got the S rank, though Cherry has the highest score still. Axel is somewhat at a disadvantage on this difficulty, even with the alternative move sets. So knowing when to abuse iframes is the key.

 

[Chupathingy]

Finished Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed.

Similarly to the first game's remake I felt there were more improvements than downsides, making this feel like a worthy remake, and an enjoyable ride just like the original game.

Now I wait to see what THQ Nordic does next with this franchise.

 

[Gergar12]

Tower of Fantasy, I am currently at the end of the story, and I may post a review here. I have every character but King. Currently working on a Genshin 2022 review which will be large.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I've decided to pick up the Thief reboot again, as I never got around to finishing it originally. It didn't take me long to remember my main problem with it: While Dishonored felt like a middling Thief fan mission, the new Thief felt like a middling Dishonored fan mission.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

An update to Holocure added a bunch of new characters and a new map, so I've installed that to see what they're like. So far, I haven't managed to unlock the new map, which I think requires a successful clear of the first map; I got one before, but the best I've done so far in the new version is 19 minutes and change. At least all the new characters are pretty fun, though I still don't really know anything about them, and I also still don't know any of the Collab sets, which limits my output quite a bit.

Still a great time, though. And I think I'm better at it than Vampire Survivors, so that's also nice.

 

[FakeSympathy]

I started playing AC Origin.

And you know what? I actually like it. It's certainly more forgivable compared to Odyssey or Valhalla as it was the first game in the series to change the gameplay format. Ancient Egypt looks really good, and using different types of weapons is really fun. Still, the combat can be really annoying sometimes, the distances between some objects are stretched too far, the dumb ai makes stealth kinda broken sometimes, and all movements in general feel slow.

 

[Dalisclock]

I started playing AC Origin.

And you know what? I actually like it. It's certainly more forgivable compared to Odyssey or Valhalla as it was the first game in the series to change the gameplay format. Ancient Egypt looks really good, and using different types of weapons is really fun. Still, the combat can be really annoying sometimes, the distances between some objects are stretched too far, the dumb ai makes stealth kinda broken sometimes, and all movements in general feel slow.

AC Origins is my favrite AC game since Black Flag by far. It's by no means perfect but it feels like it generally hits the AC sweet spot more than a lot of the other games do.

 

[Hawki]

I've decided to pick up the Thief reboot again, as I never got around to finishing it originally. It didn't take me long to remember my main problem with it: While Dishonored felt like a middling Thief fan mission, the new Thief felt like a middling Dishonored fan mission.

Sounds like it stole a lot of your time.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Sounds like it stole a lot of your time.