What games are you playing now?

I started Tyranny again for the third time.

I'm back to the farthest point I reached which is after capturing two spires.

I don't enjoy the combat but really like the story.
It makes it hard to play for long stretches as there's a lot of combat.

I find the story very refreshing and the amount of cnc is amazing. Everything seems to affect everything else.

I'm not sure if it's real or an illusion but either way, it's probably one of the games with the most consequential cnc I've seen.

I think that's quite an achievement.

If the combat was less tedious I'd probably call this one of the best rpgs for me.

As it stands its quite mediocre.

I'll see how it goes but not sure I'll finish the game. Having more fun than last time. But still…

Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk

So, I was slowly getting tired of the combat again, but was enjoying the lore more and more.
Then an annoying bug happened where Lantry became naked and didn't join the party, so I stopped and uninstalled. I finished Deus Ex HR, which overall was a lot of fun, but dragged out a bit too long for me. The Missing Link DLC was what made it hard to enjoy the last couple of levels.

I didn't enjoy losing all my skills at all. That's what made the game fun, the progression.
 
Joined
Nov 13, 2006
Messages
9,177
Location
Manchester, United Kingdom
Arcania ;-)

I've just finished gothic 4 - arcania. Played it about 70% the way through years ago, when it came out. But just lost interest. Fired it up again about 2 weeks ago and played on 'hard' (not 'gothic' because that sounded tedious - I still had to spam potions, and roll about like crazy for some fights etc) If you pretend it's not gothic and ignore the crap face models, endless fetch quests etc it's actually quite fun.

Busy installing Wasteland 3, which I got on te3h the Steam sale,….not sure how I'll do with that. I never finished WL2 - not really a big fan of post-apoc games, but sounds like it may be better (?) than WL2…
 
Joined
Aug 23, 2007
Messages
2,139
Location
Cape Town, South Africa
So, I was slowly getting tired of the combat again, but was enjoying the lore more and more.
Then an annoying bug happened where Lantry became naked and didn't join the party, so I stopped and uninstalled. I finished Deus Ex HR, which overall was a lot of fun, but dragged out a bit too long for me. The Missing Link DLC was what made it hard to enjoy the last couple of levels.

I didn't enjoy losing all my skills at all. That's what made the game fun, the progression.

I considered starting another Tyranny play through a few weeks back... but then remembered that the combat dragged, and killed that thought.
 
Joined
Aug 23, 2007
Messages
2,139
Location
Cape Town, South Africa
Me too, Fenyx Rising on Switch (also on everything)
Despite my initial Ubi-diss, it is a surprisingly good game. Never takes itself too seriously, has just the right amount of combat, exploration and puzzling, and plays mostly OK on the Switch.

My only concern is that I play AC:Valhalla (PS4, also on everything) in parallel, and already start to feel the Ubisoft formula burnout. . . ;)
So, as a remedy, I cure meself with some weird choices:
Paradise Killer (Switch, also on PC): an excellent visual novel/detective game with a crazy plot.
Doom Eternal (PS4, also on everything): you know about this one, don't you?
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2008
Messages
820
So, I was slowly getting tired of the combat again, but was enjoying the lore more and more.

haha - after it was free on Epic I thought about reinstalling after finishing CP2077 and KotOR II ... and now I am reminded why I only played once :(
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
14,932
I've just finished gothic 4 - arcania. Played it about 70% the way through years ago, when it came out. But just lost interest. Fired it up again about 2 weeks ago and played on 'hard' (not 'gothic' because that sounded tedious - I still had to spam potions, and roll about like crazy for some fights etc) If you pretend it's not gothic and ignore the crap face models, endless fetch quests etc it's actually quite fun.

I've never even made it past the first island in Arcania. I want to do replay of the entire series though, and my plan is to start with Arcania first so maybe it won't seem as bad. :)

Doom Eternal (PS4, also on everything): you know about this one, don't you?

That's the next game in my queue. I was pretty excited about it at release, but never got around to playing it and then decided to wait when the DLC was announced. I had a good time with the previous Doom.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,138
Location
Florida, US
Despite my reluctance due to being tired of sneaking around, I tried starting a Dishonored 2 campaign. And you can imagine my disappoitment when one of the main antagonists is the one I just finished with at the end of Brigmore Witches. Not cool at all. Felt very deflated. :(
…as you surely will have expected there is an explanation for that… however it will be presented some time later in the game…
Edit: What is much more satisfying in Dishonored 2: You can check your status (no kill, no alarm) at any time, so theres much less frustration involved, when you try this.
Edit edit: Playing with the two different possible protagonists will give you two different sets of skills, so it is worthwhile to try both.
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
…as you surely will have expected there is an explanation for that… however it will be presented some time later in the game…

Maybe, but it still felt awkward as hell. I had just managed to trick her at the end of Brigmore Witches, and 2 minutes later (even though it's 15 years ingame) she's back. I can imagine that if you waited years for Dishonored 2 it might not be as big of a problem, but in the way I experienced it, it felt like a recycle of a villain.

bkrueger said:
Edit: What is much more satisfying in Dishonored 2: You can check your status (no kill, no alarm) at any time, so theres much less frustration involved, when you try this.
Edit edit: Playing with the two different possible protagonists will give you two different sets of skills, so it is worthwhile to try both.

Yeah, I like the option of two protagonists and the extra stats. Great for the inclusion.

About the game itself, I have some initial remarks. While the graphics look great, I feel they lost a lot with the switch in art styles. The drawn/cartoony rendering was fantastic and really gave it flavor. Now it's just realistic steampunk. I feel it's a minus overall.

Also, the game feels a lot more sluggish. Probably since I'm running it with all on Ultra and it's not running at 60+ fps. I'll need to dial it down a bit.

I also don't like how they implemented leaning sideways. It's not toggleable. It feels like it just moves me. And I can't do it a second time. Why did they fiddle with it?

One thing I did notice immediately, was the great main menu music. I'll see if I find anything else of notice.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,252
Trying Elex again. It's much better since I have accepted the idea that you just don't even try to fight for the first 10 levels. It goes against my Gothic2 standards of progress but Elex is punishing at low levels for fighting but easy to get XP if you follow the quests. Almost at level 11 and had only one fight and that was to back up my companion.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
421
Location
by the sea
Trying Elex again. It's much better since I have accepted the idea that you just don't even try to fight for the first 10 levels. It goes against my Gothic2 standards of progress but Elex is punishing at low levels for fighting but easy to get XP if you follow the quests. Almost at level 11 and had only one fight and that was to back up my companion.

Yeah, Elex is pretty rough in the beginning especially on Hard difficulty. There are still certain enemies you can harvest for XP though at level 1-10. You just have to choose your fights carefully.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,138
Location
Florida, US
Stick with Elex, mate. It only gets better the more you play, and you can fight at lower levels, you just have to be willing to kite and/or rely on traps/tricks to win the day. Going toe to toe at level three can be super ouch! Once you get a decent ranged weapon, I recall finding one near some troll that I first lured away then stole the bow he was guarding, you'll be way more effective.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2011
Messages
18,799
Location
Holly Hill, FL.
I'm replaying Cyberpunk 2077 for a third time and loving it. Sure they wasted half their budget on music, voice-overs, and other crap. It's still my GOTY in this lousy year.:p

Probably played it for 190+ hours since it was released sofar.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,185
Location
Spudlandia
Can't seemingly get into an RPG at the moment, but I'm keeping busy with more competitive MAME goodness:

Flashgal (Sega, 1985) Oddball fast and zany beat 'em up with a female protagonist.
Dangerous Dungeons (1992) An obscure Boulderdash clone. Interesting mechanics.
Anteater (Tago, 1982) Pretty challenging but creative early collect 'em up.

For this tournament, we also played:
Return of the Invaders (1985) (Sequel to Space Invaders...) A tough game to master...
Burgertime (I'm no good at this sadly; can barely get 50 k, can't group properly...)
Zoo Keeper (Super fun arcade classic from '82)
Frogger (Konami, 1981) Loved this as a kid on C64, but could barely get 30 k on MAME. George Costanza eat your heart out. ;)

A new game gets announced tomorrow. Hopefully it's one I nominated or a vertical scrolling shmup of some description. :)
 
Joined
Jul 12, 2009
Messages
1,974
Location
Australia
I'm about 2h into Dishonored 2, and I'm still on the first mission. Really taking my time exploring and collecting everything. And the stats that always show if you've been discovered or killed anyone are a real lifesaver. I'll see how it goes, but I might actually try a ghost/no-kill playthrough. I thought I was burnedout on Dishonored, but it seems I caught a new wind. Also, the AI is a lot better it seems to be. At least, I feel I can't really exploit it as much as I did in 1. Also, civilians even though they don't attack or raise the alarm, count as 'detected by enemy' if you do something illegal. Nice.

I'm very much enjoying it. Also, having Corvo voice acted is nice. I hear they used the Thief voice actor? Never played much of the original Thief games, but that's nice. The only downside is, as I mentioned before, that even though the graphics are top-notch I still miss the art style they had in 1.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,252
I'm about 2h into Dishonored 2, and I'm still on the first mission. Really taking my time exploring and collecting everything. And the stats that always show if you've been discovered or killed anyone are a real lifesaver. I'll see how it goes, but I might actually try a ghost/no-kill playthrough. I thought I was burnedout on Dishonored, but it seems I caught a new wind. Also, the AI is a lot better it seems to be. At least, I feel I can't really exploit it as much as I did in 1. Also, civilians even though they don't attack or raise the alarm, count as 'detected by enemy' if you do something illegal. Nice.

I'm very much enjoying it. Also, having Corvo voice acted is nice. I hear they used the Thief voice actor? Never played much of the original Thief games, but that's nice. The only downside is, as I mentioned before, that even though the graphics are top-notch I still miss the art style they had in 1.

Two remarks:
1. The civilians have an additional complexity: They may warn you, that they have to alert authorities if you don't leave. And if you hang around too long or talk to them again, they might in fact do that and it counts as an alarm then. Also when you sneak around and the discover you.
2. I have played the original Thief games very much and loved, how higher difficulty level meant more non-lethal play. In this regard the dishonored games caught the thief vibe best, in particular if you play with no kill and no alarm. (Better than the Thief reboot, which was also fun, but had much less freedom in spite of trying to be open world.)
 
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
I am still playing Horizon Zero Dawn. It is my third play through in a row; the last time I did that was with Elex. In fact the sense of exploration in this game reminds me somehow of wandering around in Elex.

My first play through was on normal, my second a "new game +" on highest difficulty (ultimate). That was still quite easy, because I had all skills from the normal play through.

My third game is on ultimate (without the new game +) and it is much more demanding. There are some fights I still didn't manage to win up to now (e.g. cauldron zeta or the grave hort death bringer), so I started to explore the frozen wilds before trying them again.

What I love on ultimate difficulty is, that economy makes sense: For each powerful weapon you have to save shards and it is a great feeling of progression when you can afford the next shadow weapon.

But the greatest surprise was that I did find a new side quest, which I had missed during my first two play throughs (it is the one involving machine blood). The quest giver is not located in a city or otherwise marked location so I only found him by thinking: Oh, that looks like a building and I haven't been there yet. While it is technically a fed ex quest, it adds in an interesting way to the lore of the world, because you learn how different machines have different origin and destiny.

Side note: I have now 380 h in steam for HZD. I made a comparison and had similar steam times for Elex, the Dishonored series (in total), Borderlands one and two, Fallout 4, Prey, Might and Magic X and Lords of Xulima, but for most of these only after replaying the games after some time. For games outside of steam I reckon that Might and Magiv VI - VIII, the Baldur's Gate series and the Spellforce series would reach similar counts.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
1,786
I am about halfway into KotOR II and it is still going pretty well ... couple of unresolved (but finished) quests, minor bugs here and there - but my memory had things getting much worse much sooner.

Only regret is I played as a female, and that means instead of getting Handmaiden I get the Disney-ish Disciple who is just spouting exposition at me all the time. Oh well! I got to wear a Leia-ish outfit to dance for Vooga the Hutt! :D
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
14,932
Wrote so many times that Dishonored is IMO a perfect game, won't bragg again. But…
2. I have played the original Thief games very much and loved…
I didn't like Thief games.
In fact I dare to say that Dishonored is a mustplay for anyone who liked DX:HR.
Yes it's different. At the same time someone is pulling strings.

My only concern is that I play AC:Valhalla (PS4, also on everything) in parallel, and already start to feel the Ubisoft formula burnout. . . ;)
I'm currently playing AC Vikings.

Reviewers were praising it, everyone said OMG the best AC ever.
It is not.

It's more buggy than CP although was released much earlier, while visual effects are top notch it's uglier than Origins and Odyssey, it's not silky smooth as the two predecessors, combat became absolutely atrocious (f. off with dark souls) and if that wasn't enough of QTE there is a drinking QTE minigame, opening theme is the worst ever, etc.
I'll make sure to share everything I was disappointed with when I'm done, every hour another thing makes me roll my eyes.

I've thoroughly enjoyed both Origins and Odyssey, honestly expected a great game at least on that level.
Valhalla went lower towards mediocrity. It's not burnout, it's the game having too much of rubbish and design crimes inside.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Back
Top Bottom