What games are you playing now?

@Carnifex Did Legends of Amberland stay difficult to the end and what about loot progression. I was gob-stomping everything by level 20 when I last tried it and hadn't found a new piece of loot in 5 or 6 levels.

Yeah, the loot options seemed pretty lack-luster, at least the random finds were for me. Once I'd released a few of the imprisoned craftsmen, I was able to purchase a few really nice items. The opposition did seem fairly weak for the most part, though a few dragons and some spell casting nasties kept me on me toes. I really, really dislike finger-wagglers in general!

I've gone back to playing some Dungeons of Dredmor; maybe I'll beat it this time. Steam says 58 hours so far!

I just had to look up Dungeons of Dredmor, to see when I played it. I finished the game in December of 2011, and have yet to replay it, so might have to pencil that in some time. I remember not being pulled in immediately, yet later it really improved and grew on me. Enjoy it, you can win!

Very excited to play Pathfinder II, but holding off because I just finished Solasta and want a break before another fantasy themed, party-based, top down RPG. So I've decided to jump into Cyberpunk which I got on sale from the holidays.

Messed around with it last night. Have some initial questions and would love opinions:

What's the verdict on keyboard / mouse vs. controller. I have both. I started with controller last night but was struggling to aim guns and also to drive the car. The car driving was downright ridiculous. I could only go zero or 100 mph and was crashing into everything. It was comical. Maybe keyboard / mouse is better?

What's the verdict on difficulty level? I'm thinking hard or very hard.

For character creation, it seems you have to make a decision on one of three high level build types - strong healthy fighter type, smart tech hacker type, or stealthy ninja type. Is that generally correct? I don't have any strong RPG feel for this character, so open to ideas on what would make for the must fun play through. I generally only make it through main campaigns once, so if there's a build type that would maximum fun content for one play through I'm all ears. I started with a strong healthy fighter type, but during some of the tutorial I was sort of wishing I was more of a stealthy type. Also tech hacker type seems kind of more in line with the theme. Struggling to decide!

Backstory? Without spoilers, just curious if one backstory has emerged from the three as a fan favorite.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by bizorker
What's the verdict on keyboard / mouse vs. controller. I have both. I started with controller last night but was struggling to aim guns and also to drive the car. The car driving was downright ridiculous. I could only go zero or 100 mph and was crashing into everything. It was comical. Maybe keyboard / mouse is better?

I didn't try a controller (don't have one anyhow) but with mouse and keyboard, driving was very much doable even if a bit challenging sometimes. Just important to switch to the third person view (Q key).

Originally Posted by bizorker
What's the verdict on difficulty level? I'm thinking hard or very hard.

Personally, I played medium and I thought most fight were a bit too easy so yeah, I think going at least hard is a good option.

Originally Posted by bizorker
For character creation, it seems you have to make a decision on one of three high level build types - strong healthy fighter type, smart tech hacker type, or stealthy ninja type. Is that generally correct?

Seems right. In the end, it doesn't have a huge impact. It just make some playstyle a little easier. I put basically all my skill point in Agility/Techno/Strength (don't remember the exact name) and I could still go around hack and go stealth.

Originally Posted by bizorker
Backstory? Without spoilers, just curious if one backstory has emerged from the three as a fan favorite.

Can't say about that one. I only tried the Corpo path and I thought it was nice the way it was integrated in the dialogs during the entire game.

I can't think of any reason to play CP 2077 with a controller. It's a standard first-person game, so a controller isn't going to be the optimal choice here for most people. You'll get used to the driving pretty quickly.

As for your background, just go with the one you like from a roleplaying standpoint. I don't think there's one that's objectively better than the others. Same with your build.

Some games support both at the same time, and you can grab the controller just for the driving part. I don't know if that's the case for CP but it's something to try.

I used to play like that with GTA5, and I think Watchdogs, because I don't like the experience of controlling vehicles with the keyboard/mouse, even if that's not even close to a simcade.

I played GTA V with mouse and keyboard for running around and steering wheel and pedals for the driving. It required a mod, but I really liked it.

If that it possible in CP2077 I'll do it that way, when I eventually get around to playing it.

Originally Posted by SveNitoR
I played GTA V with mouse and keyboard for running around and steering wheel and pedals for the driving. It required a mod, but I really liked it.

If that it possible in CP2077 I'll do it that way, when I eventually get around to playing it.

I have tried that once with another game, but it was really awkward to get over the wheel to reach the keyboard. Wheels add a lot to good racing games thanks to the FFB, but for games like that it's just too cumbersome for me, even if the handling is better than with a controller.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Apart from Heaven's Vault, which is an incredibly deep game, despite its rather cartoony graphics, almost worthy of Indiana Jones, I guess ! -
- well, apart from that I fired up the "Talkie Version" of Indy Jones 4 today. You know "Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis", a game that drawn one deeper and deeper and deeper in … Which is a rarity with modern games : To be able to hook one into without any action !

That "Talkie Version" was never released here in Germany. All we got was a translated German-language version - but that was good enough to draw one into the game !

So … I think I'll play that game with real voices for the very first time in my life … And I think that I'll have lots of fun with it again !

That and "Heaven's Vault" … I think that game is slowly climbing up into being one of the deepest stories I've ever played …

That's what I'm playing now … apart from getting back to full health after 2 weeks which had been not very good for me …

I just looked it up on steam. Is it fair to compare the story with a very good choose your own adventure book?

Originally Posted by Redglyph
I have tried that once with another game, but it was really awkward to get over the wheel to reach the keyboard. Wheels add a lot to good racing games thanks to the FFB, but for games like that it's just too cumbersome for me, even if the handling is better than with a controller.

It was really cool to drive with one hand and aim the gun with the mouse.

I had the wheel and keyboard both a little bit offset from the middle to swap quickly, but it was as you say: a little cumbersome.

That's one reason why I'm curious about analog keyboards. To get a mix of controller and keyboard in one thing.

I really had to look around for something that struck my fancy and settled on an rpg-maker type game called Another Star. I've put maybe five hours in so far, and the difficulty can really spike from place to place. This game doesn't really hold your hand much, and I'm enjoying the ride so far.

Not much, but I've been enjoying some ESO recently. Looking forward to news of the next chapter in a few days.

Come to think of it, I don't think 2021 had a single "big title" as far as I'm concerned, though I did enjoy a few of them to a certain extent.

Deathloop was ok, even if I consider it one of the weakest from Arkane - and I'm not even that big of a fan. Well, I do like most of their games - but I don't think I've *loved" any of them except for Prey - which was a great game, if extremely derivative of SS2.

At least Elex 2 is coming soon

Originally Posted by SveNitoR
I just looked it up on steam. Is it fair to compare the story with a very good choose your own adventure book?

As someone who has played Heaven's Vault and a lot of CYOA games, I'll chime in. I wouldn't say it's like that at all. It's not text based in that way. Inkle's earlier Sorcery series games are CYOA games, but by this one isn't. It's closer to a traditional puzzle game that takes place in a 3D space, but with an atypically branching narrative and linguistics puzzles.

I'm playing Fallout 4. What can I say but it is one of the worst games I have played. There are bugs galore - far more than both Fallout 3 and Skyrim combined. Quest bugs, physics bug, pathfinding bugs, elevator bugs, loading screen bugs - the developers should be ashamed of themselves. I actually had to install a mod to make it playable on my top end gaming pc! It actually runs better the older your GPU is!!!

The writing is some of the worse I have seen and lore is pretty much limited to log entries you find around the place (like SS - except it makes sense there).

It completely shits on everything that is Fallout. It is very deriative and even tries to copy more content from Wasteland than FO1/2/3 did (i.e. synths and some new weapons that weren't in previous fallouts). Power Armour is now worn on top of normal armor?!? Within 15 minutes of the starting sequeunce the VD has a suit of power armour, killed some deathclaws and started building new settlements/upgrading power armour and weapons.

The entire focus of the game is collecting shit to craft shit. Armour is now split across five pieces solely for the purpose of being able to craft/updgrade the individual components. The MC can craft a fusion reactor within 5 hours of getting out the vault.

The quests are generally woeful. Every location you find is pretty much the same - clear out all the mobs and then find a magazine/bobblehead at the end. If you are very lucky there will be an NPC you have to defend/rescue.

Once I cleared a location and then 5 minutes later a NPC gave me a quest to go back there and it was fully repopulated with mobs. The game makes heavy use of the "Radiant AI" that everyone hated in Skyrim/Oblivion/Fallout 3. Bethseda has never heard the saying less is more.

Settlement building is moronic. The VD seems to be the only one in the entire world who can do anything. When you build stuff it is mostly a lesson in physics. You need an advanced degree to be able to place a house/structure/graden plot and have it actually sit naturally on the ground. When you use a garden plot the plants float in the air above it.

If you leave the game alone and you have sleep mode turned on in Windows 10 it will hard lock your PC.

As someone who actually enjoyed Skyrim and who thought Fallout 3 was somewhat okay (it was at least somewhat consistent with the lore of F1/2) - I can't see how they could produce a game like Fallout 4. It is a whole load of ideas thrown together (survival, crafting, settlement building etc) and it really doesn't work as a whole.

I have grave concerns for Starfield.

I quite liked Fallout 4 myself - and didn't find it particularly buggy.

The writing was pretty weak, however, but I find that par for the course with Bethsoft games.

Starfield remains my most anticipated game of 2022 - and it has nothing to do with writing

Originally Posted by bjon045
As someone who actually enjoyed Skyrim and who thought Fallout 3 was somewhat okay (it was at least somewhat consistent with the lore of F1/2) - I can't see how they could produce a game like Fallout 4. It is a whole load of ideas thrown together (survival, crafting, settlement building etc) and it really doesn't work as a whole.

I don't disagree with everything you say, but I'm surprised you hate FO4 this much but somehow think FO3 was ok.

FO3 suffers from all the same things except the settlement building obviously since it doesn't have it. Overall, I thought FO4 was on par or a little better than FO3 in most ways.

As far as bugs, it was average for a Bethesda game meaning that there's a lot of them. I don't recall it being particularly worse than their other games though.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I don't disagree with everything you say, but I'm surprised you hate FO4 this much but somehow think FO3 was ok.

FO3 suffers from all the same things except the settlement building obviously since it doesn't have it. Overall, I thought FO4 was on par or a little better than FO3 in most ways.

Maybe I have rose tinted glasses for FO3 since I played it so long ago. At least in FO3 you weren't wearing Power Armour in 20 minutes of normal playtime and you weren't "upgrading" laser weapons because of course the VD is a master engineer who knows better than the scientists who originally created the weapons.

I do have a particular distate for the settlement building and crafting system though.

Originally Posted by bjon045
At least in FO3 you weren't wearing Power Armour in 20 minutes of normal playtime and you weren't "upgrading" laser weapons because of course the VD is a master engineer who knows better than the scientists who originally created the weapons.

Fallout has never been realistic. I don't see how being able to upgrade laser weapons is any stranger than food items still laying around almost 100 years after the war or the 1930's style gangsters in FO2. You have to throw normal logic out the window with this series.

I hear you about the power armor though. I didn't care for the way it was implemented in FO4 anyways tbh.