What games are you playing now?

A word of warning: There may be some slight inaccuracies in this report, and I have the feeling that I've said some of these things before, but I can't remember where and when (but at least after the year 2000). If all this is familiar, either decide that a good thing can't be said too often. Or skip the followin lines.

Currently I'm mostly playing LOTRO.

I was a bit concerned when they went for the free to play/micro transactions model, but so far it hasn't been too intrusive. There is the LOTRO store icon. And occasionally you get an alert saying you've just earned 10 turbine points and where you can spend it. There is also a button in the crafting panel where you can click to buy materials. But all in all, it's not too disturbing, easy to overlook.

I like the setting and I like the environments. I spend most my time in the more eerie parts of the world: Old forest, Barrow downs, North Downs. Lots of things to do. It doesn't have as many at-the-same-level areas as for instance Wow, but there is a lot of things to do, so you can easily level 2 or 3 characters without repeating yourself.

The different races are portrayed well, I think, behaving like I expected they would from the books. All in all, the lore is great - no surprise there, if you like the books. In fact it adds to my enjoyment of the books (I reread the first one a couple of months ago), in that I get to see places I didn't remember were there (like the village of Scary in the shire). Hereby recommended.

I also like how the main quest line touches the main LOTR story line. Basically you're a supporting act, helping Frodo and company in the background. I think this part of the game is very well executed. BTW: The main quest line can be completed as a solo player. The final big boss steps all (at least those I've done) let you choose between fellowship mode or single player mode.

The character classes are among the best I've seen ever, especially the most recent ones: The Warden (a noisy spear-fighting thing), and the rune keeper. Who keeps runes. And uses them for fighting. These two classes offers a lot of different tactics. I've only scratched the surface.

And the roleplay aspects can be very good, too - it's the only MMO where I've seen people sitting in the local inn, planning their next raid. IN CHARACTER. Far less silly names and annoying jumping like in that other game.

One thing I don't like: The crafting system. You don't select crafting skills freely, they come in packages of 3, so called vocations. Some of the choices seem illogical. Why would a historian, interested in scholarly stuff be interested in perfecting himself as a weapon smith? I know it's there to encourage people to cooperate, you need to get some materials from others. But this way of doing it seems very artificial. And it isn't necessary - in that other game you can select these professions freely, but you still need to get some materials elsweyr. At the moment I'm playing a guardian, which is basically a tank. For him I've chosen the armourer vocation, which have prospector for mining, metalsmith for makiung armour. And tailoring, which makes some sense, maybe, as this is also armour making. But don't need it, and I end up not using tailoring at all (also because I need to buy the materials I need from others).

So which game do I prefer: LOTRO or WOW? Depends on what I'm after. LOTRO is a very "serious" game. If I want light hearted gaming, with lots of fun don't care about depth, I go for Wow. If I want something more than that (and we're still talking about MMO's) it's LOTRO. And currently, LOTRO is my game.

And of course it's a bit refreshing to get out of the stereotypical halfling-dwarf-elf setting.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Have a bunch of iPod Touch games downloaded - like Infinity Blade, Undercroft, The Quest, Aralon, Dungeon Hunter 2 - but they're all cute rather than really good. Except for Quest and Undercroft - but they don't really hit the mark.

Just catching up a bit …

Having played on Touch and iPad, Aralon in particular is much better on iPad. Sorta looks/feels like Morrowind in some ways … but not as good. Pretty decent though - better than way too many recent AAA games …

Originally Posted by txa1265
Just catching up a bit …

Having played on Touch and iPad, Aralon in particular is much better on iPad. Sorta looks/feels like Morrowind in some ways … but not as good. Pretty decent though - better than way too many recent AAA games …

An incredibly simplistic and primitive Morrowind, sure.

Better than recent AAA games? I'm not sure I agree.

I was bored in 15 minutes - and I very much doubt playing it on iPad would have made it much better. Though I'm sure the interface would be better suited for a bigger screen.

Spent the whole night messing around with Thief Gold.

I recently purchased a DVD compilation of all the Thief games, even though I still own the original box releases. This compilation has them already patched to their final versions, and apparently tweaked to run on WinXP and Vista.

I had to do some further tweaking to get Thief to run on Windows 7 64bit, and I also ended up downloading a file that allows further resolutions, and a widescreen fix in all of the Dark Engine games.

Bottom line: It's the first time I've played Thief in about 8 or 9 years, and it's still fucking awesome.

I envy you, JDR13.

JDR, the Thief series has been on my buy list for a while. One of the compilations looks complete (with Thief Gold), but I have yet to buy it without getting more info on included printed manuals… Is this the one you have and did it come with printed manuals?

Yep, that's the exact one. I purchased mine from a vendor on Ebay.

No printed manuals of course. The full original manuals for all 3 games are included in PDF though.

OK, thanks. I should just get it and buy a few ink cartridges. Oops that'll triple the price…

Playing Jane Jensens "Gray Matter", after years of waiting. It seems like a decent adventure, but I'm not totally hooked yet

On the PS3 I'm about halfways through "Red Dead Redemption". Cool game!

Also playing "Dead Space 2" on the PC. Have to say I'm slightly disappointed. The first one was surprisingly good but this one seems a bit… uninspired…

Jan Jenson? With turnips?!

Originally Posted by Drithius
Jan Jenson? With turnips?!

…and a Flasher Master Bruiser.

@KasperFauerby: Thanks for your "Gray Matter" post, I didn't know it had been released. Bought it, now downloading it from Gamersgate. Yay!

Originally Posted by pibbur
@KasperFauerby: Thanks for your "Gray Matter" post, I didn't know it had been released. Bought it, now downloading it from Gamersgate. Yay!

Well, enjoy!

I'm about 6 hours into the game now and, as expected, the story really starts to pick up. Seems like this will be a very enjoyable adventure, although it also seems like it will be a fairly easy one (so far).

Originally Posted by pibbur
@KasperFauerby: Thanks for your "Gray Matter" post, I didn't know it had been released. Bought it, now downloading it from Gamersgate. Yay!

If you want to import it : There's even a Collector's Edition of it out here in Germany.
http://www.amazon.de/dtp-entertainme…9787391&sr=8-3

Waaaah, the third 'Gem Craft' game is out! I'm level 28 by now, and so far I love it as much as I loved the two installments predating it. Gem Craft Labyrinth differs enough from both predecessors to make it interesting, yet most of the features I loved are back. The 'Gem Craft' games are among my favorite tower defense games.

Originally Posted by Jaz
Waaaah, the third 'Gem Craft' game is out! I'm level 28 by now, and so far I love it as much as I loved the two installments predating it. Gem Craft Labyrinth differs enough from both predecessors to make it interesting, yet most of the features I loved are back. The 'Gem Craft' games are among my favorite tower defense games.

Played it for a few minutes, and I can easily see this being an addiction. I think I'll stay away.

What I really want is Plants vs Zombies 2.

Btw, where is your new avatar from? I find it slightly disturbing for some reason..

Yeah, Plants vs. Zombies is my other TD addiction, so I perfectly understand your wish. Only yesterday sonny expressed his wish to play it again, so we spent roughly an hour with PvZ. - The other game I'm playing with sonny ATM is the first LEGO Star Wars. Little time to play stuff without the kid nowadays.

Disturbing? Disturbing?
What might be disturbing about this poor avatar of mine ?
Where it's from? Well, here's a nicely made vid answering your question (slightly overused song, though). The epic deed would be naming the lad, though, especially as he was a one-off character.

Originally Posted by Drithius
Jan Jenson? With turnips?!

With Uncle Spanky!

I"m playing BG2, DA2, and WoW at the moment…

Minecraft has totally consumed me, i havent played anything else in weeks…

Sammy playing Minecraft - holy macaroni….

Currently in the home straights (again) of PoR:Ruins of Myth Drannor. Using a rogue, two elven bowgirls and a monk.

Probably one of the best traditional rpg's of the SSI Forgotten Realms era - though it won't suit some of todays casual gamers.

Next will try for minimal team - maybe even down to one single player - difficult but who knows !!