What games are you playing now?

Tried Cyberpunk on XSX
So far this is more hate than love -- haven't played the game on PC, mind you, my issues are more design-oriented than technical. Btw, from what I've heard, the XSX quality mode looks quite comparable to a "notch-under-ultra" setting on PC.

Will play more to properly evaluate this game.

duerer said:

Tried Cyberpunk on XSX

So far this is more hate than love -- haven't played the game on PC, mind you, my issues are more design-oriented than technical. Btw, from what I've heard, the XSX quality mode looks quite comparable to a "notch-under-ultra" setting on PC.



Will play more to properly evaluate this game.

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I tried it for only 5 minutes on xsx, but it seemed to be working smoothly. Problem is I will be seeing things that I normally wouldn't mind because of all the critics. For instance, the density of the crowds seemed quite low (start of corpo).

Unfortunately my disc was chipped near the inner ring so I returned it. I will be getting a replacement soon.

I'm still playing Ara Fell, damn this game is lots of fun! The story is amazing and just when you think you've figured out the combat, you get new abilities/skills that can change everything. I just hit chapter five last night, not sure how much more there is to go, and I'll be sad when it's all over. Some of the named fights have really made me rethink strategies and tailor my combat in certain ways just to pull out a victory, and I cannot stress how much fun that is!

Started my The Medium playthrough, and it's interesting enough. It looks great. It's very similar to the old adventure games, like Syberia. But it has issues rendering in ultra-wide. I can select the resolution but I've got black bars on the side. And I haven't found any unofficial fixes. Usually I've noticed this gets fixed easilty with some hex editing of the executable. No idea about this one though.

But it's highly disappointed that most games do no make sure their games run properly in ultra-wide resolutions. Sad.

EDIT: Seems there was an official answer to this on the steam forums, and they're officially not supporting ultrawide. They give some explanation, but I'm not sure I understand it. They're acting like they pre-rendered each scene accoring to each separate resolution or something? And the game sometimes rendering from two cameras has issues with rendering to an ultra-wide resolution? That doesn't make much sense to me. I was under the impression that the graphics engine just renders at the resolution you choose and it's easy to provide. Which is why most fixes to ultrawide support can come from fan patches of just editing the executable.

Maybe in the case of Medium it's different? They do render from a static camera, but I don't understand why the camera wouldn't be able to render at any resolution. It could be that some of the scene details are pre-rendered and not done in real time? But then if so, why does the game keep my GTX 1080ti at 75 degrees C like the most demanding game out there? Weird.

I wonder if the community will be able to come up with a fix and make it support ultrawide. If they do manage, that'll really put the devs to shame unfortunatey.

Played a bit more of The Medium. It's certainly intriguing and I'm curios where it goes with the plot. Also, the graphics and direction is beautiful. Especially the spirit dimension looks downright horrorfying sometimes. A combination of cthulhy and giger, it feels to me. Looks neat.

One thing that's a bit annoying is the rendering of both dimensions in parallel. It's sometimes interesting, but most of the time I keep forgetting I'm supposed to be attentive in both dimensions. And it also halfs the realestate that they're working with. I'm not sure it was a good idea to do it like this. I think it would've been better to just allow you to switch, maybe? Though I'm sure they probably playtested both. It's definately hard to get right.

About the parallel dimensions, a youtuber made a good point that it's similar in concept to what Soul Reaver did, with the shifting between the spectral and physical realm. But there they didn't handle it at the same time. I'm not even sure what the advange of doing it at the same time. Maybe they'll make better use of it later on? We'll see. But I can see it definately being polarising as a feature. And especially since they're saying it's a real resource hog. And no kidding. It's keeping my 1080ti hotter than most other AAA games. So overall, so far, the mechanic is not winning me over.

But other than that, it's pretty great. It's interesting enough, and it seems to be tackling the subject matter fairly maturely. I'm curious where it goes.

Played a bit more of The Medium. And man did they crank up the creepyness. There's very little jump scares (only had one so far, in the 4h I've played) but it's fucking as hell. And the music. I heard they got the guy that did the Silent Hill soundtracks? It's definately similar in style.

And I had to stop my session. Even though there's little jump scares, there's only so much I can take with my pulse at 120. I usually play horror games in short bursts. I can take horror movies ok, since I'm just laying there passively. But games, it's like they're asking me to seek out the horror. To want to actively do this to myself.

duerer said:

Tried Cyberpunk on XSX

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ilm said:

Problem is I will be seeing things that I normally wouldn't mind because of all the critics.

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Heh, just ignore it. Honestly, the reviews are so inconsistent for this game (either universal praise or utter dismissal), I had to see it for myself. So I broke my "not buying a CDPR game before Enhanced Edition" oath, and there it is, bugs and broken features in all glory.
I don't mind that, endless years of gaming taught me tolerate bugs (Ultima VII/VIII/IX, anyone?). It's the subjective overall impression that matters - and, frankly, I'm torn

ilm said:

Unfortunately my disc was chipped near the inner ring so I returned it. I will be getting a replacement soon.

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This game just born under a bad sign, isn't it?

Bought Titan quest on recent GOG sale along with both newer expansions (Atlantis, Ragnarok). Playing this after years again. It's still fun, I wasn't drawn into Grim dawn and I like the setting of TQ, the ancient theme is appealing. I love the art and attention to details, the beautiful environments, the rag doll animations, etc. It's a cute game, but it can be very slow and you have to distribute skill points wisely.

Playing Wizardry 6 with the automap mod, after seeing Matt's chat video. This mod makes a world of difference for levels with interwinding stairs and doors. The mod also has a facility to write notable locations on the map (e.g. trader, fountain .. etc).

I find it more forgiving than Wizardry 7 and enjoying crawling through the dungeons with the pre-set party. Only let down are the sound effect, and there is no music (unless this background noise is music!).

SpoonFULL said:

Playing Wizardry 6 with the automap mod, after seeing Matt's chat video. . . .

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Yup, and this is how to treat old classics.
No need for unnecessary "hd graphics" or "updated game mechanics".
These games are classics for a reason. No need to re-design them, as the gameplay is as good as it gets.
All these games need are just some subtle quality-of-life features (journal, automap, better UI), and that's it.

Bane of the Cosmic Forge was amazing on release. I must have built 60 parties in the first few areas of the game. Just trying to find a great balance. It looks horrible nowadays though. Still fun!

JFarrell71 said:

I've delved back into Spiderweb games after many years. I'm nearing the end of the first Avernum (I've previously played the first bit of all six but never gone very far into any of them), and I'm also partway through Geneforge 1 (I've finished two of the five in the past). I picked them all up cheap through either Steam, or in GOG's recent RPG sale. The only game I didn't get was Queen's Wish, which I do want to try at some point.

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Played Queen's Wish until fairly far in the game. The setting is interesting, sort of like being a red coat general in the Victorian era. My problem with Spiderweb games is that they always give me the feeling of playing the same game, gameplay wise. I really wish we had more tactical options.

Nehrim, again. This time I'm focusing on exploration and side quests first. And after 60 or so hours I've started the main quest (too bad is started crashing a lot in the desert).

Ya'll are playing some great games these days, I see some Wizardry love, and some Spiderweb joy, keep up the stellar gaming!

About 7 hours into The Medium, and I think I'm playing it really slow, since I hear people have finished it in 8h? And I don't feel I'm near the end. Maybe just past the halfway point? Not sure since the story is quite hard to predict. But it's interesting. I'ts keeping me engaged.

Also, the spirit dimension you explore is just bonkers in how beautiful it all looks. Grotesque but beautiful. Some of the scenery is just gorgeous in how damned it looks.

I'm tackling Dungeon Siege 2 again. I really like the game and I've played it a handful of times throughout the years. I've installed all of the DS1 maps into DS2 and removed the level cap, both via mods of course.

So, DS1 was made by Micro$oft Game$. DS 3 was made by Obsidian, if I remember right. Therefore since M$ owns Ob$idian, we should get D$ 4 any year now Probably before anything from Bethe$da.

vanedor said:

Played Queen's Wish until fairly far in the game. The setting is interesting, sort of like being a red coat general in the Victorian era. My problem with Spiderweb games is that they always give me the feeling of playing the same game, gameplay wise. I really wish we had more tactical options.

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Going from Avernum 1 to Avernum 2 (remakes), the difference in encounter variety is very noticeable. Jeff makes much more use of different elements in the fights in Crystal Souls. Plus some things simply work that don't in 1, like ensnared. There was no point in me using abilities that ensnared opponents in 1 because while I was subject to its effects, they were not. 2 also adds several spells that add tactical options.

I started playing Fae Tactics a few days ago, and I'm really have a great time with it. It's one of those games where I'm not conscious of just how long I've been playing, the whole afternoon whipped by yesterday without me hardly noticing. I get some real FFT vibes from this one, the beginning was really challenging but once you bust into the teen levels, things seem to open a bit more and your team really becomes potent. As I got this one in the form of a gift from this site, I wanted to get into it fairly quickly and just not leave it on the bench, and the cherry on the top is it's actually a great game as well!!

Oh, and I don't throw FFT comparisons around lightly. It's really that good.

I'm well over 100 hours into Cyberpunk, and actually starting to get a little bored. I may just finish the main quest this week and put most gaming aside until I know I can replace my GPU if it fries.

ChaosTheory said:

I'm well over 100 hours into Cyberpunk, and actually starting to get a little bored. I may just finish the main quest this week and put most gaming aside until I know I can replace my GPU if it fries.

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I also found the gigs boring over time. They are too repetitive. I did too many and got bored of the entire game. The trick is not to do many, I guess.