What are you currently playing?

[Hawki]

Sounds like Microsoft just needs to throw more money at it. How they go about it is the question.

"Throw money at it" isn't a solution. You need something beyond that.

Also, I'd like to point out that Microsoft spent billions purchasing Activision and its IPs, which means that there's far less incentive to focus on Halo. If Microsoft's going to throw money at anything, it would more likely be one of the IPs it now owns, and likely an inactive one at that.

*Cough*StarCraft*Cough

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

"Throw money at it" isn't a solution. You need something beyond that.

Also, I'd like to point out that Microsoft spent billions purchasing Activision and its IPs, which means that there's far less incentive to focus on Halo. If Microsoft's going to throw money at anything, it would more likely be one of the IPs it now owns, and likely an inactive one at that.

*Cough*StarCraft*Cough

I should’ve put /sarcasm after the first part, but yeah. They could start by acquiring more creative talent.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Platinum achieved in AC: Mirage.

My opinion didn't really change, I just like to grab easy platinums when I can. My expectations for the game were low but even those weren't mess because the mechanics are janky and the story and characters are very very bland. Yes, I know AC and Ubisoft are names associated with bland, but this was a new achievement in bland- even a couple characters in Valhalla had personality.

Best part of the game is collectibles called Historical Sites- it's just shiny things in the world that you interact with to read some history. That was my favorite of the game, walking/parkouring around and looking at the beautifully recreated city and reading about textiles and astronomers and folk tales of the time and perfume and whatnot.

Tomorrow, a game called Wizard With a Gun comes out, which is published by Devolver Digital and.. well, look at that title! If reviews are overwhelmingly positive, it will be my next game, otherwise Spidey 2.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I tried playing DICE's Battlefront 2, couldn't find a single game with more than 5 players. Sigh. And it was a gorgeous game too.

 

[BrawlMan]

I tried playing DICE's Battlefront 2, couldn't find a single game with more than 5 players. Sigh. And it was a gorgeous game too.

Battlefront is dead....again.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Been playing Cyberpunk 2077 after the 2.0 update. (possible spoilers but I'm keeping it pretty vague)

I didn't get very far into the main story before the 1.5 update broke the level rebalance mod I was playing with, basically just to the part where you have 3 different leads to persue RE: the biochip, and done maybe a couple of Judy's side quest and hadn't even met Panam.
The main story missions are actually pretty interesting, as are the Panam/Judy sidequests and River Ward. They certainly elevate it above "standard AAA open world game, Cyberpunk edition" which it was feeling like before. Oddly all the side gigs were very "go here, kill dudes, take stuff" before working with Rogue and very walky and talky afterwards. Could maybe have mixed them together a bit more, a bunch of very low action gigs one after the other is a bit tedious.
Just got to the part in the main story where you go through Johnny's memories of Alt and... Eh, while it is in some way cool to see CP2020 history played out in a videogame I'm just not a fan of long sections of conversation and seeing as I know what's going to happen and what it is basically going to reveal it kind of drags a lot.

I only played about 30 seconds of non modded CP2077 after the patch broke the mod, but the official CDPR level rebalance in 2.0 is certaintly an improvement. No bugs as yet, just a graphical glitch that has the road disappear every time I drive over a specific section and 1 civilian fall over and then get weirdly stuck on the floor.

Overall, not bad.

 

[laggyteabag]

Yeah...sorry, I can't call it a "bright day" when someone is fired. Even if Halo Infinite was the worst thing since Bubsy 3D, I really couldn't call that "bright."

Fair enough. I obviously have nothing against them on a personal level, and I do hope that they land on their feet, but on a professional level and a fan of the franchise, I think it was very clear that they were not the right people to have led Halo after the Bungie era, and it was under their leadership that they basically spent the last 10 years dismantling Halo's credibility.

It was obviously not made clear to us if these people were let go, or if they chose to leave of their own volition (it was mostly just "Oh, this person's LinkedIn now says they are working elsewhere!" with no ceremony surrounding their departure), but in any case I was definitely not sad to see them go, and I am very ready for some new ideas at the wheel.

Um, really? Based on what?

Okay, rhetorical question, you've given your reasons, but even as someone who liked Halo Infinite overall, the game was said to last ten years. Even if that's the case, there's no sign of singleplayer content on the horizon. The game was billed as a soft reboot, but there doesn't seem to be any drive to actually go from there. In fairness, 343's had to work from a series that had a definitive ending, but Halo 4 was a wet fart, Halo 5 was wholesale rejected (even if I liked it), and Halo Infinite...well, where to from here? 343 doesn't seem to know, no-one seems to know, lots of people don't even seem to care.

It is a clean state. The person who said Halo Infinite will last for 10 years is no longer with the company. The person who promised split-screen co-op from now on, then scrapped it at the first opportunity is no longer with the company. The people who made Halo 4, and 5, and Infinite are no longer with the company. 343 Industries is now the 343 Industries of the past in name only.

The person who is now in charge is the person who brought the Master Chief Collection back from the dead, and all of the other vacant leadership positions have now been filled. No doubt as a direct result of this, Halo Infinite is now in a decent and healthy place for the first time in its life.

Obviously, there is still a lot to prove, and definitely a lot of questions that need answering regarding the future of the franchise, but I no longer see whatever comes next as "another 343 Halo", and honestly, that is enough for me to have at least a little hope.

 

[Hawki]

It is a clean state. The person who said Halo Infinite will last for 10 years is no longer with the company. The person who promised split-screen co-op from now on, then scrapped it at the first opportunity is no longer with the company. The people who made Halo 4, and 5, and Infinite are no longer with the company. 343 Industries is now the 343 Industries of the past in name only.

The person who is now in charge is the person who brought the Master Chief Collection back from the dead, and all of the other vacant leadership positions have now been filled. No doubt as a direct result of this, Halo Infinite is now in a decent and healthy place for the first time in its life.

Obviously, there is still a lot to prove, and definitely a lot of questions that need answering regarding the future of the franchise, but I no longer see whatever comes next as "another 343 Halo", and honestly, that is enough for me to have at least a little hope.

Yeah...sorry, can't really agree.

Halo Infinite was meant to be a clean slate. That a clean slate was required at all after Halo 5 ended on a cliffhanger is an inditement (again, I liked Halo 5, most people didn't, hence Infinite soft rebooted). That Halo Infinite has no apparent plans to continue its story (which ends on a "to be continued") is another inditement. Even if the people at 343 are the best developers since energy sword-sliced bread, to say Halo Infinite's in a "decent and healthy place" or "the future of Halo is quite bright indeed?" That's a big ask.

Halo Infinite might be in a great position in terms of multiplayer (I dunno, haven't played it for awhile, I certainly enjoyed the multiplayer), and no doubt there's a lot of people who play Infinite just for multiplayer (since the multiplaer portion is F2P), but I can't call Halo in a bright spot when its narrative has floundered, when it's arguably been floundering for a long time, and when there's no apparent plans to do anything with it. At least for me, you can't cut off the entire campaign/story/lore segment of Halo, call it a day, and expect me to be satisfied, even if the multiplayer might be excellent.

 

[BrawlMan]

Callisto Protocol - I am currently already halfway through the game; on the chapter, "Lost". I finally got the Shotgun. It takes you 5 missions to get the shotgun. This game has only 5 weapons in total, and the game clearly wants you to use either melee or combination of range and melee. I upgraded my pistol to near maximum and it's doing fine. I'll try and get some more GRIP moves. "Lost" is also the chapter where you get the suit and your health and inventory gets an upgrade. You go from 6 to 12 on inventory slots. Why couldn't let the player just upgrade their inventory at store stations or find them around the environment is beyond me.

When the game opens up more, it gets fun, but there is still a lot held back or wasted potential. The story is whatever (the end game twist I already know about and is dumb), but I do enjoy the characters that are present.

 

[Worgen]

Been playing Cyberpunk, Beneath Oresa, and Darktide.

What else can be said about Cyberpunk, the 2.0 update was pretty killer, game works better. I've been having crashes, but it turned out that my ram had gone bad, once I replaced it and reverified the game files, no more crashes. Been doing story, temped to start phantom pain, but also just enjoying driving around.

Beneath Oreasa is a deck building card game with a great style to it, it also doesn't feet like it takes very long for a run, but that might be because I tend to quit after a floor. Its pretty hard though, I only just got my first completed run and that was after about 10 hours of play, in which I had unlocked all the playable characters. But, its still really cool and worthy of standing next to something like Monster Train.

Darktide, 2.0 update is good, almost maxed out all the player characters.

 

[laggyteabag]

Yeah...sorry, can't really agree.

Halo Infinite was meant to be a clean slate. That a clean slate was required at all after Halo 5 ended on a cliffhanger is an inditement (again, I liked Halo 5, most people didn't, hence Infinite soft rebooted). That Halo Infinite has no apparent plans to continue its story (which ends on a "to be continued") is another inditement. Even if the people at 343 are the best developers since energy sword-sliced bread, to say Halo Infinite's in a "decent and healthy place" or "the future of Halo is quite bright indeed?" That's a big ask.

Halo Infinite might be in a great position in terms of multiplayer (I dunno, haven't played it for awhile, I certainly enjoyed the multiplayer), and no doubt there's a lot of people who play Infinite just for multiplayer (since the multiplaer portion is F2P), but I can't call Halo in a bright spot when its narrative has floundered, when it's arguably been floundering for a long time, and when there's no apparent plans to do anything with it. At least for me, you can't cut off the entire campaign/story/lore segment of Halo, call it a day, and expect me to be satisfied, even if the multiplayer might be excellent.

Yes, I should have qualified my statement with "the multiplayer is in a decent and healthy place". The campaign is a whole other can of worms.

I too definitely have my questions regarding the future of the story. Namely that the voice cast is frankly getting quite old (Steve Downes is 73) and they don't seem to be making much (public) progress regarding whatever is the next chapter. Supposedly we were going to be getting some campaign DLC at some point, but apparently the campaign team was gutted at the beginning of the year alongside 10,000 other Microsoft layoffs, so that seems increasingly unlikely. And whatever multiplayer narrative that they were constructing was cut after season 3.

Im assuming that means we will only be getting more story content when the next game launches, but we still aren't sure if the "10 years of Halo Infinite" thing is still the plan.

So assuming that we will be waiting for the next Halo game for any more story content, we have no idea when that will be coming (especially with Halo's recently quite drawn-out development cycle), and I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being the final game with our current voice cast, which definitely leaves the direction of the story from then on in question, unless we entertain the idea of recasting The Master Chief (unless the character were to die or otherwise retire).

But no, I do not envy the story team. They have inherited a franchise in turmoil, and I am pretty eager to have them settle on a single plot line and actually meaningfully build it up and conclude it. It has definitely been a while since we last had that.

---

Ultimately I guess my overall viewpoint when it comes to Halo is that I am more hopeful of the direction of the franchise now, than I was back when Halo 5 launched, or back when Halo Infinite launched. No, I have no idea what they are planning on doing, and I obviously don't have all of the answers, but at the very least I am no longer actively questioning the competence of the studio, but more so curious as to how they are going to pick up the pieces.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Reviews for Wizard with a Gun are out and while positive, the words "roguelite" and "inventory management" and "a lot of menus" are turning me off. Certainly seems like the kind of thing that will find fans, especially if they release some updates to finesse the balancing and as people come up with funny builds.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

Hot wheels uninhibited 2, I ain't doing the boogaloo rhyme fuck you.

so this is a sequel. no, we're talking a real sequel - like it enrolled on the official curriculums, attended all classes, took every exam and evening activity to squeeze through sequel school with fairly passable grades. then went on to sequel university and through a panicked haze of experimental parties and stimulant-fueled study deadlines, escaped the other side grasping a somewhat convincing doctorate on sequel philosophy. Now with this esoteric knowledge and some funding under their belt, we are offered a rare glimpse as to what some of that may be:

more!

more cars! tracks! buttons! modes! story! moves! handling! drifts! physics! colours! music! menus! mi....!

uh...menus?

...

ah for crying out loud they've only gone and nabbed the bloody fortnite live service template of a menu! when are Devs gonna realise that template is fucking shit? sorry I don't have better descriptive words, but like that menu format, I've given up any pretense of effort

also, is releasing 4 days late for any customers who don't want to pay the bullshit highest wallet damage version.

oh and all the rewards are presented to you as kunt-bungling cards for some god awful reason. am really growing to dislike the insertion of card aesthetics for rewards in games like this. you know why you're doing it. we know why you're doing it. and is sure as shit ain't for our benefit, is it?

other than that and the lingering dread of patches creeping in microtransactions, the game part of game is the classic romanticised ideal of videogame sequel so many strive for yet so few achieve. plus handling has been tuned tighter so the first game probably feels like trying to drive GTA 4 cars compared to GTAV if anyone were to go back. did I mention it has a story as well?

Hot Wheels 2: "I did everything right! but they disparaged me."

 

[BrawlMan]

I'm stuck on a section of Chapter 6 with a really shitty checkpoint in Callisto. They spawn in too many enemies, and weapon select system can really fuck you over. Fuck this shit; I'm playing Sonic Superstars now!

 

[BrawlMan]

Loving Sonic Superstars! Currently on the Sky World level. I got two Chaos Emeralds so far, and the powers a fun. I do wish there was a quick select with the shoulder/trigger button and not having to just use the RS with a wheel. Makes it awkward to use.

 

[Adeptus]

Enderal. I never played any of the original Elder Scrolls games (OK, I played Morrowind few minutes), but I like this mod.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Yeah...sorry, I can't call it a "bright day" when someone is fired. Even if Halo Infinite was the worst thing since Bubsy 3D, I really couldn't call that "bright."

I can definitely think of a number of people where I work that would brighten my day by their permanent absence.

Enderal. I never played any of the original Elder Scrolls games (OK, I played Morrowind few minutes), but I like this mod.

You're playing a total conversion mod for Skyrim, but you've never played Skyrim? That's kind of odd.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Started on Like A Dragon: Isshin.

My first every Yakuza game (this is a Yakuza game right...). So far I am enjoying it, although I do wonder if the shitty non-combat controls are a deliberate choice. I have to admit that I don't really get the combat yet. So far I am just mashing the attack button, and occasionally the special attack button. There was a moment where I had 6 guys rushing me and I just pulled out the revolver and pressed square till they all died. I genuinely could not tell if I am playing right.

The story and setting are the highlight of course. The Japanese know how to cast a damn good voice actor. I just got to Kyo, which is exciting because I am planning to visit Kyoto next year.

 

[BrawlMan]

I quit Callisto Protocol. Chapter 6 is too annoying and there are poor checkpoints. Why couldn't they add more checkpoints in the update? That was one of the main complaints they didn't fix. Already sold the game somewhere, and going back to RE4R SW Professional and playing Sonic Superstars.

 

[Bartholen]

Okay, I just started Total Warhammer 2 back up because I have a vacation coming up. I continued the Chaos campaign as Kholek Suneater... and whatever dumb twat designed this faction can choke on a fat chode. Because when Kholek was defeated and then returned, I literally had to start his horde entirely from scratch. All of it: every upgrade, every unit. Which is just so goddamn assblasting stupid. It means you have to waste literally dozens upon dozens of turns waiting for population surplus to accumulate doing literally nothing. There is no way to speed this process up in any way. And don't forget, if an enemy army way stronger than you shows up, you're fucked, because you have no way to accumulate enough units to stand even a ghost of a chance against anything more dangerous than a mildly annoyed kitten. And you can't rely on other armies for support either, because for some goddamn reason CA decided that chaos should just start infighting any time two armies are within the same post code. So you'll regularly be outmatched by multiple armies of enemies.

I assumed that at least you would retain the upgrades with your legendary lords but nope, fuck you, you're back to level 1. And basically back to square one as well, because in the time it takes to build your horde back up, all the progress you made so far can easily become undone. This is one of the most punishing design flaws I've ever seen in a game. Who made this shit?