What games are you playing now?

Started playing Infamous: Second Son on PS4. And man, does it look good. If this is what they're capable of getting out of the PS4 so close to the launch of the console, I can't wait to see what they get towards the end of the cycle. Naughty Dog is gonna make one awesome Uncharted, I'd bet.

Back to Second Son, I'm having a lot more fun with it than with Infamous 1 which I never managed to finish. That one's all grey and brown, and the main character is just no fun. But in SS, they really improved. The protagonist is a wise-cracking teenager, but he's fun and really fits the whole game. Troy Baker really has a range of voice-overs he can do. Quite a jump from doing Joel in the Last of Us, to this Delsin kid.

Anyways, seems I love the powers they did in this one. I can wait to get the neon ones. They look cool as heck.

purpleblob said:

Oh Fluent… do go back to BG2 sometime and don't leave it too long - you may never go back then (and you will be missing out!!!)

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No, I'm definitely going back. As soon as I beat Konung 2 (which I'm close to doing) then I will play BG2 again.

I actually didn't mind taking a break from BG2 because I was basically done with all the side quests in Chapter 2 and I just had to advance to the next chapter. So now when I go back again, it won't be hard to get myself back into it because I can just advance the chapter and bam, fresh content .

But yeah, I don't want to leave it too long because it's simply a fantastic game. I am even writing a retrospective on the Baldur's Gate series that will be posted here on the Watch. Stay tuned for that .

Since getting The Last of Us on PS4, I've started a new playthrough on Grounded difficulty. And it's hard as hell. On a masochistic level I'd say. The big fights where you have over 5 enemies are just amazing. Amazingly difficult. It really turns into a survival simulator. You have choreograph yourself across the playground that is every combat scenario, trying to catch enemies by surprise, and constantly moving so they won't find you.

When hell breaks, and the shoots starts, you're gonna want to keep low, try to divide and conquer them, splitting them into smaller groups so that you can manage to get the jump on one of them, catch and use him as a human shield, firing 1-2 shots into the other guys, when realizing you have no more bullets in your revolver. Then you bash the guy's head in, and seek cover once again.

No position on the scenario is safe, and if you even attempt to hide in corner you're done for. It's amazing when, after the 15th try, you succeed, but it's infuriating as hell, when you get killed in 1-2 shots. Even fist fights turn ugly if fight 2 and a time.

I'm not sure I'm gonna make it through this playthrough like this. I've reached Pittburgh and it's just difficult as hell. I don't even want to imagine the bookstore fight which probably has over 20 guys in there. And if you die, you start it all over again. I think I'm gonna dial it down a bit.

I've seen some guy's playthrough on youtube, on this difficulty setting, and he cuts most of the repeats for every time he dies, and he said that some fights he had to reload 50+ times. That just sounds awful. But I'd bet you feel a great sense of realization when on the 51st try you get it right.

Just thinking about it is intimidating as hell. I think I'm gonna lower it to a different difficulty, and just try it as that. My first playtrough was on Hard, and that also posed quite a bit of a challenge. But this on is just beyond. And to top it off, most of your UI is hidden. You never know how much health you got, aside from seeing it on Joel by his limping or holding his chest, you never see how many bullets you've got in your clip/chamber. No indication of how many shivs. I've actually ended up behind a clicker, and then realized I had no shivs to take him out.

Man, some people really have a lot of patience if they play through this whole thing on Grounded.

EDIT: Actually, scratch that. I just saw a demo on youtube of how some other guy did it, and got enthused once again to re-try it. It's just amazing how good the gameplay is. I've never though of doing it the way he did. I was basically banging my head on a wall trying it the same way.

Playing The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, bought on GOG.
It does crash here and there, other than that I haven't seen any bug worth mentioning.
The patch that addresses crashes just got released.
http://www.gog.com/forum/the_legend...he_sky/the_legend_of_heroes_patch_is_now_live

Positives:
- It's jRPG and as such does contain endless mobrespawns but is not a grinder. It actively discourages grinding as higher level you are, less XP you get (even zero if you're too strong for certain mobs). You may outrun any random mob on the map, but even if caught you may escape without fighting.
- You can save anywhere outside of the battle.
- It has loads and loads of text, heavy on story.
- Superior to classic jRPG (FF?) design where you don't see enemies on the map. Here you see them when you come close, there is also an item that allows you to see them in long distance.
- Exploration counts, best items you get from hidden chests, sometimes after a challenging fight.


Negs:
- Mediocre music.
- Loads of text is great, but sometimes feels too cliche and is rarely integrated in the game (crimescene investigation is a rare occurence where it does matter).
- UI is too "gamepady", inventory and menus are horrible not to mention screen rotation by leftclick+middlebutton roll is retarded, default configuration is crap and there is no hardware autodetect, no quicksave/quickload, to change settings you need to run a separate config app.

So far it's fun, solved all quests in the first town and left for the second town.
If only all jRPGs were like this.
If you're done with D:OS and not sure what to play before Risen3, I recommend this one.

Make sure you run the config.exe first where you'll probably want to do this (changed almost everything):

I've just reinstalled Saints Row 3 for some ridiculously insane actiony goodness. The different personalities they put into the various protagonist voices makes it a lot more interesting to replay than if they'd just had two or three people read out the same lines.

joxer said:

Playing The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, bought on GOG.
It does crash here and there, other than that I haven't seen any bug worth mentioning.
The patch that addresses crashes just got released.
http://www.gog.com/forum/the_legend...he_sky/the_legend_of_heroes_patch_is_now_live

So far it's fun, solved all quests in the first town and left for the second town.
If only all jRPGs were like this.
If you're done with D:OS and not sure what to play before Risen3, I recommend this one.

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I loved this game on the PSP ... and re-downloading it now to play again (here is my review from 2011 - http://www.vgblogger.com/review-the-legend-of-heroes-trails-in-the-sky/9254/)

Legend of Heroes looks cool.

I'm playing a few games currently, but the past few days I've been most focused on The Last Remnant.

The combat system is a real bright spot in the game and this may sound crazy, but I actually find myself enjoying the cutscenes immensely. It helps that I'm finding the story interesting.

The game has a high amount of polish throughout and it all comes together to form a really fun game.

Well, I have cancelled my ESO subscription until they fix a bunch of things so I am splitting time between Konung 2 and Bg1 Reloaded mod.

txa1265 said:

I loved this game on the PSP … and re-downloading it now to play again (here is my review from 2011 - http://www.vgblogger.com/review-the-legend-of-heroes-trails-in-the-sky/9254/)

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Great review, I totally forgot to mention in pros the "replay battle" design, no need to reload just because you risked not to heal and then mobs nailed your party.

I also say buy it, more precisely - buy it on PC!

Reasons?
1. The whole pretty long intro movie you can (re)watch with a simple media player as it's .avi file in the game folder.
2. I say music is mediocre. You have some better music you'd want in? Grandia 2 OST maybe? Convert scores to .ogg format, rename and put in correspondent folder!
3. Yea graphics is dated, but not badly dated as RPGmaker games. That graphics is a part of game's charm, plus you can force resolution skyhigh in config, so there.

txa1265 said:

I loved this game on the PSP … and re-downloading it now to play again (here is my review from 2011 - http://www.vgblogger.com/review-the-legend-of-heroes-trails-in-the-sky/9254/)

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Wow thanks, I've been looking for a good J-RPG on PC for ages... buying!

GothicGothicness said:

Wow thanks, I've been looking for a good J-RPG on PC for ages… buying!

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Try The Last Remnant, too. It's an amazing JRPG!

joxer said:

Great review, I totally forgot to mention in pros the "replay battle" design, no need to reload just because you risked not to heal and then mobs nailed your party.

I also say buy it, more precisely - buy it on PC!

Reasons?
1. The whole pretty long intro movie you can (re)watch with a simple media player as it's .avi file in the game folder.
2. I say music is mediocre. You have some better music you'd want in? Grandia 2 OST maybe? Convert scores to .ogg format, rename and put in correspondent folder!
3. Yea graphics is dated, but not badly dated as RPGmaker games. That graphics is a part of game's charm, plus you can force resolution skyhigh in config, so there.

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Absolutely agree - if I was buying new I would buy on PC ... but with PSP digital download, all I had to do was select 'download' on my PS Vita and then play!

Now that I grinded rifts and bounties a bit with a level 70 witch doctor on torment 3, I returned to Drakensang 2.

Finished the second portal piece of the add-on.

I have to say, having 2 magic users with the ball lightning spell makes battles quicker and less tedious than just using them for buffing, debuffing, and healing. It's sort of brute force though…

Since I needed another PS4 game, and don't want to face facts that I maybe got it a bit too early, I bought Tomb Raider - Definitive Edition for the PS4. Looks pretty good. Seems they Uncharted-ed it a lot. But, Crystal Dynamics could be using their time to develop some Legacy of Kain. But no. They're busy doing the next Tomb Raider game. I feel bad for developers that do a good job in rebooting a series, and then get stuck doing the same thing over and over again.

danutz_plusplus said:

Since I needed another PS4 game, and don't want to face facts that I maybe got it a bit too early, I bought Tomb Raider - Definitive Edition for the PS4. Looks pretty good. Seems they Uncharted-ed it a lot.

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As I mentioned recently in this thread, Tomb Raider surprised me. It's a pretty decent game and much better than the older titles imo.

I'm not sure what's included in the Definitive Edition, but I would have recommended the PC version as it's probably 1/3 the price of the PS4 game.

JDR13 said:

As I mentioned recently in this thread, Tomb Raider surprised me. It's a pretty decent game and much better than the older titles imo.

I'm not sure what's included in the Definitive Edition, but I would have recommended the PC version as it's probably 1/3 the price of the PS4 game.

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From what I hear, it's all content that was released for it bundled together. But, as I said, I just wanted an excuse to play some more on my PS4. Call it buyer's hype. I'm jumping from going through Last of Us on the highest difficulty, and then I'll jump into TR when that gets frustratingly difficult, and I need a pause.

What I like about TR, is I see they also took the Metroid-style gameplay, where you have incentive to return to previous areas, when you get new abilities/gadgets/tools to get at stuff that was previously accessible. Darksiders 1/2 also did a great job at that. (here's hoping that series can also be rebooted)

My modded Fallout 3 playthough has turned out to be somewhat brutal. I'm constantly on the verge or running out of ammo and never have enough caps. Leveling is still a tad too fast (100-150% slower than default) but the rest has made for a vastly different experience.

I'd actually say it has been Bioshock-esque so far. The emphasis on exploration is quite evident and the game is full of otherwise unmarked visual storytelling. For whatever reason Beth opted to fill it with a ton of oh-so-random scenes like a toy factory with toys who "smoke" and "drink" or a NukeCola-collecting and birthday-celebrating Ghoul alongside the usual idiotic NPCs who only hurt immersion.

Nevertheless I wouldn't say this has ruined the experience to any great degree. For someone who always tries to RP the situation the PC is set in and prioritizes the main quest I haven't dealt with the issue of lost father in over 10hrs.

Edit: Oh and Three-Dog is about as annoying as Minsc.

danutz_plusplus said:

From what I hear, it's all content that was released for it bundled together. But, as I said, I just wanted an excuse to play some more on my PS4. Call it buyer's hype. I'm jumping from going through Last of Us on the highest difficulty, and then I'll jump into TR when that gets frustratingly difficult, and I need a pause.

What I like about TR, is I see they also took the Metroid-style gameplay, where you have incentive to return to previous areas, when you get new abilities/gadgets/tools to get at stuff that was previously accessible. Darksiders 1/2 also did a great job at that. (here's hoping that series can also be rebooted)

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I'm considering the definitive edition as well - seeing as how it just went on sale. I don't even remember if I've got all the DLC for my PC version.

Is there any significant DLC for PC Tomb Raider? I mean, beyond the usual bullshit weapons and skins?

DArtagnan said:

I'm considering the definitive edition as well - seeing as how it just went on sale. I don't even remember if I've got all the DLC for my PC version.

Is there any significant DLC for PC Tomb Raider? I mean, beyond the usual bullshit weapons and skins?

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I think there's some extra tomb to explore or something. Nothing to write home about. I also had the PC version for some time, but I never got around to it. So I got it on PS4, just to see how it is. One thing that's better, is the hair. My PC, which is pretty decent, couldn't handle the hair effects on Lara. But the PS4 seems to handle it quite well.

danutz_plusplus said:

I think there's some extra tomb to explore or something. Nothing to write home about. I also had the PC version for some time, but I never got around to it. So I got it on PS4, just to see how it is. One thing that's better, is the hair. My PC, which is pretty decent, couldn't handle the hair effects on Lara. But the PS4 seems to handle it quite well.

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Yeah, I think I have those extra tombs as well. My PC could handle the hair - but it looked pretty bad and I actually preferred the normal hair. I seem to remember the extra hair thing had been rewritten for PS4 - but hardly a good enough reason to buy it.

Hmm….