What are you currently playing?

[wings012]

I'm playing Underrail.

It's... a bad game. That should be a good one, and at least some people will love.

It's very recognisable in a Fallout-y (1&2) sort of way. It's got a stupidly high learning curve, which is annoying: you have all these apparent options for character development, but in fact the mechanics force min-maxing, so really you have a choice of min-max builds. This means you can start a game, and 20h in realise it's fatally flawed and have to start from scratch. Or you spend hours checking forums before you even start, because then you'll hit the difficulty wall, but at least you won't have wasted them with a useless build that needs to be scrapped.

Having got past the crunch and realised min-maxing isn't wankery but necessity, I'm now stuck in the huge, sprawling play area that requires vast amounts of dull trudging around to fulfill missions that are never quite as exciting as you'd like them to be. And there is so much trudging. I mean, there's loads of hours of gameplay - it's just a lot of it isn't fun.

I definitely enjoyed what I played of Underrail, though I never beat it. But it's really the sorta game I need breaks from, but incredibly unfriendly towards taking breaks from. Since it lacks basic things like a map(though now that I look it up, it appears they have added one?) - it's all too easy to forget what you were doing and lose track of things.

That's kinda basically what happened to me, I took a break from it and just could not get back into it. I remember the game not giving you a 'home' so I ended up stashing my shit in random trashcans across the world. And I basically forgot where I put what. At least in FO2 you had companions and your car. Thankfully I was playing a Psy character so I didn't have to deal with weapons and ammunition. Though I remember having to weight manage and backtrack a lot to discombobulate various monster parts into recovery items.

I think the game could've benefited with a bit more user friendliness and a few modern niceties. But bringing this up to most fans will just have to rage on you for being a casual.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Greedfall
It's trying, and so am I. It's not "bad" I guess, but the lack of non-stock characters gets tiring; . Oh and I chose to be female, yet the game forgets that and refers to me as male whenever it seems an editor didn't check all corners for genderless acknowledgement. Either that or it's attempting to slyly sneak some 'Terf' criticism in there about as courageous as its colonial criticism. NPC AI have a good time walking into walls though, and me when I'm busy shopping, like an idiot pile-up.

WRC 8
Does it think looking like a lazy PC port somehow makes it appear more "sim-like"?
There is literally no reason other than the license to get this over, say, DIRT rally (Not 2 though because they decided to lock the campaign behind an internet connection...yes, the single player campaign) It's like they spent all their money on the license and thought "fuck it...that'll do for the fans, rush the rest for the next yearly obligation!" It runs worse, it looks worse, it has tiny ugly menu text for ants and a mouse cursor for every thing not related to driving an actual car.

Get Even
That was a big download for something I quit and deleted after 5 minutes of play. Nevermind!

Warhammer Inquisitor
Ummm, still playing it (unlike the others, which essentially means i never played them and have no useful opinion so must have imagined it all as part of another gauntlet of daymares from waking life), but not sure what good can be said about it. The cartoonishly evil tone in which my dominatrix space cyber soldier speaks is somewhat entertaining, and everything explodes into giblets with minimal effort. Soooo, lets not think about the hud or drab colours or the prehistoric inventory system despite those being integral to every second of progress.

 

[Gordon_4]

Past night I decided I want to shoot some guns and tried a few casual rounds of Counter Strike Global Offensive. Then I was swiftly reminded that I’m crap at these games when I ended with a KDR that took me back to CS1.6 and my PentiumIII.

Honestly I give up at this point, Halo MCC has now for some reason got input lag up the arse, Origin keeps crashing on me so no Mass Effect, DragonAge or Battlefield are available and I’m horrendous at FPS pvp games, indie and isometric games I find to be insufferable and I’m awful at RTS games. Time for me to toss a painter’s drop-sheet over my PC and take up Draughts, like the stupid old man I’ve clearly become.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I just finished Dark Souls 3. Don't know what I'm going to play next. I could go after Nameless King, since that and the boss leading to him are the only ones left in the vanilla game, or I could try moving on to something else for a bit. Though, considering I'm likely getting Ghost of Tsushima in a few days, I don't want to try and start something too big and involved before then...

 

[Chupathingy]

Finished playing the Destroy All Humans! remake and had a great time. They improved on a bunch of things, mainly gameplay related, though from an aesthetic perspective some aspects were better, some were worse. Overall a very worthy remake. It's nice to finally see one of Pandemic's IPs not be tarnished after their passing.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Just finished Paper Mario again. Pretty easily my favorite N64 game. It's not quite as good as The Thousand Year Door, but it's still really good. Your partners are not as deep or well developed as in Mario RPG, which is too bad. Basically after their intro they don't really get any more development, and it's too bad that there is no interaction at all between party members. On the plus, though, most NPC dialogue updates between every chapter, which makes the world feel a lot more alive than a lot of other games where NPCs will repeat the same two lines for the entire game. It's fun wandering the towns and seeing them react to the events that are going on. I wonder why Mario won't let Luigi come along, though. He really wants to, and it's a shame he doesn't.

this time I finished at level 8. It's not the lowest possible (which is 7) because I hadn't really decided to go all out on a low level run at the start and fought a couple enemies I should have used a fright jar, or Parakarry's airlift on. It was low enough to make the game challenging, though, which was kind of annoying for the final boss which has about 5 minutes of fluff before the actual fight starts. Thankfully it still only took me 3 or 4 tries. It's not a difficult game. I found enemies a bit more difficult to avoid in the overworld than in Mario RPG, and it's a little annoying that you lose coins when you run from battles. Also there is a bit too much button mashing on the timed hits, especially when you have to repeatedly slam the analogue stick to the side. That can't be too good on my, already quite worn, stick. I also really suck at defending. I had a hard time blocking a lot of attacks, even with the badge that is supposed to make it easier. Oh well.

The dungeons are fun, especially the Ice Palace, which has a lot of good moments with its clever use of mirrors. There isn't a chapter that I really dislike at all. Flower fields might be a little boring, actually, but that's it. The levels aren't as creative as TTYD, but there are still a lot of good moments, like where Mario gets accused of murder and has to clear his name.

Something that the early Mario rpgs really excel at is giving Bowser and Peach a personality. It was such a breath of fresh air at the time to see Bowser snarking with his minions and for Peach to actually do something other than be a helpless captive. The art style is still good. It looked good back then, and it looks good now.

All in all, I still really like the game. I didn't play as thoroughly this time as I did last time, but I'm eager to move on to TTYD. I'll definitely play this game again at some point, it's inevitable.

Something I'm not quite sure about yet. I've been doing low level runs in Mario RPG and Paper Mario, I don't know whether to continue this into TTYD. As I remember there's a lot more to do in TTYD and a lot of optional fights like the pit of 100 trials that I might want to do. Also, I'll probably have to get better at superguards, which I've always been kind of bad at. Also the combat is more filled out and fun, so it's kind of a shame to skip it. Hmmm.

 

[Dalisclock]

Finished Chapter 2 of Red Dead Redemption 2 and am starting Chapter 3. Reached New Orleans....er, St Denis for the first time and it's truly beautiful to explore. I visited New Orleans a few years ago and RDR2 depiction is a lot more along the lines of what I expected(and wanted) to see then what's there, even in the Quarter. It doesn't help that Bourbon St. seemingly full of tourists and drunks all the times in the present day.

I am a little weirded out by the fact New York. Pennsylvania and California exists in the RDR world but New Orleans doesn't and the western/mid-west states are all...different. I guess Heartland is supposed to be the midwest between the Mississippi and the Appalachians, since Blackwater is apparently Missouri-ish so Grizzlies is....I don't know, because Tall Trees is apparently supposed to be the Rocky Mountains and New Austin is Texas/New Mexico.....And Annesburg is maybe Pennsylvania/Ohio? West Elizabeth is Louisiana(or what used to be Louisiana when it was a massive chunk of land and now one state) and New Hanover is Pennsylvania? My inner geography nerd is confused right now and I highly suspect the writers/mapmakers at rockstar kinda lost track of what parts of the US they were using the real and expy names of.

Anyway, for a game that is less plot and more about the big open world, I'm surprisingly enjoying it. Instead, it's a bunch of Outlaws bonding with each over while doing crimes and it feels strangely compelling in a way that few other games seem to approach. Hell, there's a mission where you can go fishing with Dutch and Hosea for a while while they tell stories and it should feel like time wasting but it doesn't.

And it's weird to go from RDR where John was one of the few sane people around to here where John is one of the Junior guys who everyone(or at least Arthur) ribs for being not particularly smart....and for apparently not really spending much time with his wife and kid, which certainly makes Jack's anger with him in RDR1 a lot more understandable.

Apparently RDR2 has a lot of of wierd and interesting side quests, not unlike the first gang, but I haven't managed to find that many of them. I'm close to done with the "FInd all the gunslingers" stranger quest and now I discoverd one with escaped exotic animals but I'm unclear if some of these I have to stumble across in the wild or something. Are there hints where to look or do they spawn semi randomly in certain times and places?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Exile 1, the first of Spiderweb's Exile series (later remade as Avernum, and later remade again as Avernum again) and I think Spiderweb's first game. Exile is the best fantasy RPG series ever made and anyone who says otherwise is wrong.

Rather clunky compared to E3 (first one I played), and it seems they only could get so many art assets (and re-used them with additions for later games).

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

*sigh* the ps-now free trial ended, so all those previous games are no more...they are one with the aether and the unknown forever.
Stuck inside - hiding from life, happiness and sun, such horrid things (oh and a virus or something) - managed to get a first impression of Cyberscape. No, Laserspace? Hypertrace? ...Tracerhype?? Wtf?

*checks console*

ahh...hyperspace! Hyperscape, sorry, ffs.

It's kinda fun, bouncy rooftop runny Tron edition of battle royale. But wait, what's that sound? It's so very quiet. Is that music? What the fucking hell are you doing playing cyberpunk synthwave at this miniscule volume?...this isn't how you do music you averice-aloof droid bricks! and of course the menu says it's the highest available volume. No doubt they made sure the voice chat is so loud an overfed 9 year old chomping on their 20th packet of crisps will be enough to knock every prized book and tequila bottle off my shelves while the cat shits herself though. Sort it out, videogames! Don't be afraid of the very music you must have paid to put in there. Jeyzuz!
Oh yeah, game's ok, free makes it ok at least.

 

[Agema]

I don't mean to be facetious, this is a serious question, but doesn't Wizardry 8 have the same thing where if you don't minmax, you'll eventually get stuck and have to start over after reading a guide to how to minmax your characters properly?

Nope, just the normal make sure there are enough points in key stats. But you totally can forgo some INT on your mage for CON, or whatever, with both viable. You've got a party of characters which usually lessens the need for min-maxing inherently, and you don't particularly need to min-max any of them. You can also just wander around the wilderness killing things for XP and skill advances (which are separate from levelling) if you find you're struggling; the "central" linking map area (Arnika Road) has scaling opponents until you get to high level that you can level off if you need, although it can also sometimes spawn random encounters that squash you like a bug at low-medium level. You might be able to run away if you spot them in time, of course.

There are a few places with seriously challenging opposition; many of the worst fights are also optional so you can leave them until you're ready. You can often control difficullt fights with good positioning though, and in some places (like Trynton) by using some of the wandering friendlies to help you out.

 

[Agema]

I definitely enjoyed what I played of Underrail, though I never beat it. But it's really the sorta game I need breaks from, but incredibly unfriendly towards taking breaks from. Since it lacks basic things like a map(though now that I look it up, it appears they have added one?) - it's all too easy to forget what you were doing and lose track of things.

That's kinda basically what happened to me, I took a break from it and just could not get back into it. I remember the game not giving you a 'home' so I ended up stashing my shit in random trashcans across the world. And I basically forgot where I put what. At least in FO2 you had companions and your car. Thankfully I was playing a Psy character so I didn't have to deal with weapons and ammunition. Though I remember having to weight manage and backtrack a lot to discombobulate various monster parts into recovery items.

I think the game could've benefited with a bit more user friendliness and a few modern niceties. But bringing this up to most fans will just have to rage on you for being a casual.

You've got an apartment in your start base with some storage, and you eventually get another house later on - they might have been added since you played though. Mine are full of junk because of the restrictions on what merchants are prepared to buy, and not realising early on that loads of crafting components are totally useless.

I think the pacing of the game is so poor, I imagine a massive ton of people just got bored and gave up. I doubt I'll finish it.

 

[wings012]

You've got an apartment in your start base with some storage, and you eventually get another house later on - they might have been added since you played though. Mine are full of junk because of the restrictions on what merchants are prepared to buy, and not realising early on that loads of crafting components are totally useless.

I think the pacing of the game is so poor, I imagine a massive ton of people just got bored and gave up. I doubt I'll finish it.

I think I remember earning a home in one of the cities which had an arena, and I do remember the starting apartment but I never went back there. My main reason for having random stashes really was accessibility. Since the game didn't have a map when I played, and my own sense of direction is downright garbage - I really didn't want to backtrack to any central storage. If the game had some form of quick travel I'd probably utilize these areas for a more permanent stash.

I stopped playing around when I left that city with an arena and entered the... upper metro area? I just got hella lost and couldn't really figure out what I was supposed to be doing.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I just finished Dark Souls 3. Don't know what I'm going to play next. I could go after Nameless King, since that and the boss leading to him are the only ones left in the vanilla game, or I could try moving on to something else for a bit. Though, considering I'm likely getting Ghost of Tsushima in a few days, I don't want to try and start something too big and involved before then...

That would give you enough time for Nameless (one of the best boss fights in the series imho) and his pet gatekeeper. There’s a trick to easily beating the latter anyways, so that’s almost a none issue. Think Taurus Demon, but with more elaboration.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Finished Chapter 2 of Red Dead Redemption 2 and am starting Chapter 3. Reached New Orleans....er, St Denis for the first time and it's truly beautiful to explore. I visited New Orleans a few years ago and RDR2 depiction is a lot more along the lines of what I expected(and wanted) to see then what's there, even in the Quarter. It doesn't help that Bourbon St. seemingly full of tourists and drunks all the times in the present day.

I am a little weirded out by the fact New York. Pennsylvania and California exists in the RDR world but New Orleans doesn't and the western/mid-west states are all...different. I guess Heartland is supposed to be the midwest between the Mississippi and the Appalachians, since Blackwater is apparently Missouri-ish so Grizzlies is....I don't know, because Tall Trees is apparently supposed to be the Rocky Mountains and New Austin is Texas/New Mexico.....And Annesburg is maybe Pennsylvania/Ohio? West Elizabeth is Louisiana(or what used to be Louisiana when it was a massive chunk of land and now one state) and New Hanover is Pennsylvania? My inner geography nerd is confused right now and I highly suspect the writers/mapmakers at rockstar kinda lost track of what parts of the US they were using the real and expy names of.

Anyway, for a game that is less plot and more about the big open world, I'm surprisingly enjoying it. Instead, it's a bunch of Outlaws bonding with each over while doing crimes and it feels strangely compelling in a way that few other games seem to approach. Hell, there's a mission where you can go fishing with Dutch and Hosea for a while while they tell stories and it should feel like time wasting but it doesn't.

And it's weird to go from RDR where John was one of the few sane people around to here where John is one of the Junior guys who everyone(or at least Arthur) ribs for being not particularly smart....and for apparently not really spending much time with his wife and kid, which certainly makes Jack's anger with him in RDR1 a lot more understandable.

Apparently RDR2 has a lot of of wierd and interesting side quests, not unlike the first gang, but I haven't managed to find that many of them. I'm close to done with the "FInd all the gunslingers" stranger quest and now I discoverd one with escaped exotic animals but I'm unclear if some of these I have to stumble across in the wild or something. Are there hints where to look or do they spawn semi randomly in certain times and places?

Sounds like you’re in tune with how it’s meant to be played. A lot of people that think it’s boring have I think gone in with the mindset of simply playing through the main story, but it’s really about the little things along the way. One of my favorite random moments happened in Chapter 4, just getting drunk around the camp fire with the gang singing and telling stories, then watching a big storm roll in that ultimately cuts the party short. The thing is, I could’ve been off who knows where doing god knows what at that time while they carried on without me, but it’s just one example of something that felt so dynamic and unique.

I read some character lore which mentioned how during this game Arthur looks down on John yet, because he walked out on Abigail (and the gang) for a time when she got pregnant. How their relationship changes, including with Abigail and Jack, and what they go through is pretty poignant to this game’s theme, seeing as how it’s a prequel and all that sets up John in the original.

The map is definitely skewed in terms of geography compared to the actual U.S., but it’s probably not meant to be accurate beyond merely representing distinct regions vs relative physical locations. This is the closest I’ve seen.

As for missions and activities, pretty sure the ones with initials on white icons can be missed if a chapter advances, so I always did all those before the yellow icon missions. I don’t know if yellow ones can be missed too, but I always saved any of Dutch’s for last. Most of the other stuff can happen at different times and is not really chapter-specific IIRC. For example I don’t think I started the gunslinger one until chapter 4. I think a general guideline is the icons with initials are chapter-specific and should be prioritized (doing white first then yellow), but the other stuff happens pretty randomly and is triggered at odd times. Maybe they disappear during story missions or certain times of day, and then they’ll show up again. There’s also stuff that can’t even be done or found until the epilogues (yup, there’s two of those too).

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Apparently RDR2 has a lot of of wierd and interesting side quests, not unlike the first gang, but I haven't managed to find that many of them. I'm close to done with the "FInd all the gunslingers" stranger quest and now I discoverd one with escaped exotic animals but I'm unclear if some of these I have to stumble across in the wild or something. Are there hints where to look or do they spawn semi randomly in certain times and places?

I forget if the map jots down where you're supposed to look or you follow the circus guy there. But the order and locations are very much scripted.

 

[Silvanus]

Just finished Paper Mario again. Pretty easily my favorite N64 game. It's not quite as good as The Thousand Year Door, but it's still really good.

What did you play it on, out of interest?

I've been really wanting to tick it off my list. I've got a Wii U sitting around somewhere, it's probably on the e-shop...

 

[Drathnoxis]

What did you play it on, out of interest?

I've been really wanting to tick it off my list. I've got a Wii U sitting around somewhere, it's probably on the e-shop...

N64.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Finished Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, Platinum and everything. I love this game though I'm afraid it's been so long since I played the original version that it's hard to appreciate the improvements, most of which streamline the more cumbersome aspects of alchemy and farming. You can map up to 4 special attacks to the controller, which beats the hell of pausing to select an attack. Some of the more irritating aspects of the original are gone, like removing stat damage from the too hot/too cold stages, and nerfing the infamous mages and slimes of Titania. Some new mid-bosses have been added, and there's a boss rush mode that pits you against 30 bosses in a row without checkpoints.

 

[happyninja42]

Started dabbling with Hardspace: Shipbreaker again. A recent update added some new layouts to one of the ship designs. Sadly no actual new ships, just different arrangement of sticks in the Space Jenga Ships. Still really fun. Playing on the Zero Clones mode, bascially Hardcore, as if you fuck up and die, that's it, you have to start from scratch again.

It's interesting playing that again from scratch, as the various upgrades to your equipment, make a HUGE difference in how you approach the ships. But, you don't realize how much they do for you, until they're taken away. The starting suit and cutter and grapple gun are so weak, it's just not funny. I lost count of how many times I'd try to cut/move something I could on a previous high end character, and be like "Wtf? Is the game bugging? Why isn't this working?! Oh..right...I haven't bought that upgrade yet....shit."

 

[Dalisclock]

Sounds like you’re in tune with how it’s meant to be played. A lot of people that think it’s boring have I think gone in with the mindset of simply playing through the main story, but it’s really about the little things along the way. One of my favorite random moments happened in Chapter 4, just getting drunk around the camp fire with the gang singing and telling stories, then watching a big storm roll in that ultimately cuts the party short. The thing is, I could’ve been off who knows where doing god knows what at that time while they carried on without me, but it’s just one example of something that felt so dynamic and unique.

As for missions and activities, pretty sure the ones with initials on white icons can be missed if a chapter advances, so I always did all those before the yellow icon missions. I don’t know if yellow ones can be missed too, but I always saved any of Dutch’s for last. Most of the other stuff can happen at different times and is not really chapter-specific IIRC. For example I don’t think I started the gunslinger one until chapter 4. I think a general guideline is the icons with initials are chapter-specific and should be prioritized (doing white first then yellow), but the other stuff happens pretty randomly and is triggered at odd times. Maybe they disappear during story missions or certain times of day, and then they’ll show up again. There’s also stuff that can’t even be done or found until the epilogues (yup, there’s two of those too).

I've definitely hung around the camp a bit at times just to watch and listen to the other people there, not to mention the campfire at night and listen to people chat. It's a wonderful sense of downtime and feels very homey. Kind of like the Normandy from ME2/3 but where he characters actually feel dynamic in their routines and not just standing in the same room all the time. I've even put a lot of money into improving the camp, considering you don't really need much for actual gameplay(Food is cheap, if not free, and you don't need to eat very often) and the only thing that really costs money is weapons and bounties, maybe some outfits which seem to be mostly cosmetic.

I do find it interesting that Arthur is putting the most into the camp, according to the ledger. Oh, there are small contributions here and there but they don't even add up to restock money, meanwhile "Arthur $150, Arthur $10, etc". And you know whose name isn't in that ledger at all? Dutch "We need more money, AR-THUR!" Van Der Linde. What happened to the camps share again? The half of the take that gets automatically given to the camp? Apparently Dutch is saving it for....something..... in a "safe place".

I've read the white quests can appear and disappear depending on time of day, though this is the first I'm hearing they might disappear based on chapter as well. One of the few things I'd heard of being permanently missable is if you did the gunslinger quest but didn't grab their unique guns when you had the chance. Not that it's a huge deal but those guns are rather nice.