What games are you playing now?

For all the flak it gets, I think this is a great game and I'm having a lot of fun with my replay.

I think the majority of PoE 1's flak happened during launch - and before the DLC rebalance patching. It was well and truly a mess. But these days, 190 patches later, it's probably up there with Kingmaker as one of the best RPGs since BG.
 
Joined
Nov 10, 2008
Messages
5,978
Location
Florida, USA
I can see why it got so much flak, even having just played the opening vignette.

It was sold on the premise of being a D&D inspired game, but delivered some weird-ass crazy mechanics thing that kind of looks like an infinity engine game but also entirely doesn't.

And if you're going to flop out a whole raft of completely new systems then it might help the player if more time was spent in tutorials of what is going on.

I still have zero idea what endurance either is or does and I've been playing for hours, and while it's clear it's the primary mechanic, I have zero knowledge of what is happening to my endurance during combat and what, if anything, is going on when I take a hit or dish one out.

At this point in the game I just do what one normally does and the enemy seems to fall over and the battle is won. But what I did on a mechanical level I have no idea at all.

And I chose a character who uses Focus, another seemingly new and inexplicable mechanic that is crucial to the game. I had to google what Focus even is and why it is I only have 7 of it and why I can't even use my starting skills.

The game has tool-tips for lots of things, but not Focus, this seemingly crucial stat. It doesn't even mention it on your character sheet. The only indication that I have any focus at all is this little round number on my portrait during exploration and combat. Clicking it doesn't take you anywhere and there's no indication of how to increase this number.

Even googling didn't help because everyone who asked got told the mechanical answer, no-one answering understood that the problem was the lack of in-game communication about this mechanic and so the detailed and factual answers meant nothing to the asker, as they didn't have the base knowledge of what it was in order to understand a detailed answer of how it works or what it is.

And the whole thing about everything lasting for "seconds" is really off-putting. It makes it so much harder to understand quickly and easily the difference in power-level of a spell or effect. The descriptions of everything read like gibberish.

None of this is a problem once one is fully experienced with the system, of course, I mean, D&D is extremely confusing the first time you play it.

The difference is, most of the people who rushed to buy those first Infinity Engine games already knew the rules and the complaint was more that the computer versions left out lots of minutia. With PoE, literally no-one has ever played these rules before, so the only way to learn them is to play the game fully... at which point you've then already played the game.

And so, naturally, people were just frustrated that they didn't just use OGL or something, the people being mostly D&D fans who thought they were funding another D&D-like game.

It just gives off a very off-putting first impression. It makes it so much harder to placate your core audience that had... payed for something in advance. I didn't, so I'm not that bothered. To me it's just another random RPG :D
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,762
One thing that perhaps others don't care about, but irked me profoundly from PoE was how the world was filled with these random NPCs with random bits of text, often trespassing the fourth wall, that had to be put in just because a backer paid for it. To me that kind of broke the game and the respect for the developer at the time.

That you could bribe your way into spurting out an immersion breaking wall of text through an asinine NPC, and the fact that there were scores of it all over the place was way over the top. "But Nereida, you could just ignore them!". Yes, I could. But they were still there, and I tend to address the elephant in the room. That was, in my eyes, unforgivable from Obsidian, especially in a RPG that was all about storytelling and building a setting to be immersed in.
 
I'm thinking of playing a game called Remnant From the Ashes. It could be compared to Hellgate: London but it's not a Diablo clone. It's also about weird alien invading trees.

 
Joined
Aug 13, 2020
Messages
188
Location
Old America
Just finished Creaks. It's beautiful and in the spirit of other Amanita games. The puzzles are just difficult enough so that I didn't ragequit or try to find a solution online :) It's not as good as Machinarium and the puzzles tend to be variations of previous ones, but you'll still enjoy the game.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2017
Messages
139
I'm currently playing the game The Last of Us 2.
This is just a masterpiece! I haven't enjoyed the game for a long time
 
Joined
Aug 19, 2020
Messages
1
I've been playing Project Hospital, since it was on sale the other day.

It would be a pretty decent sim if the devs had bothered to do any QA or had a decent UI. Among the notable bugs I've encountered, there's furniture which cannot be moved or removed, can't place an elevator even though it's in a space with nothing there or around it, departments randomly don't have waiting rooms, etc...

Even on the stuff that does work right, it doesn't work well. For example, in order to place objects, you have to rotate the entire map to get them to place correctly. Many objects need multiple other objects to work, and there's no indication of what those are or how to place them.

In short, it might be worth picking up on sale for $3, but that's it. It's got too many issues, both design-wise and plain poor QA wise, to buy full price.
 
Joined
Jun 28, 2007
Messages
2,743
Location
In the Middle of Nowhere
I've gotten hooked on the pokemon side-game in Final Fantasy X-2. It hit me right in my vulnerable spot (collection obsession). Also I was looking around for nude mods, naturally, but it seems there are more modest mods instead. Seriously what kind of filthy pervert needs that??! :puke:
 
Joined
Jul 7, 2010
Messages
908
I'm still plugging along in Everquest 2, on the Kaladim server, which is a time locked variant. I've done four epic quests so far for four different characters, one of which upgraded to the mythical version about six weeks ago. We get more classic content unlocked this week, so I'm looking forward to re-exploring those areas shortly!
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2011
Messages
18,795
Location
Holly Hill, FL.
For all the flak it gets, I think this is a great game and I'm having a lot of fun with my replay.

Yes, I'm still enjoying it. Though I am playing it very slowly. I tend to do a map-screen or two per session and then leave it for a bit before pressing on. As such, I'm still knocking around the Gilded Vale. I haven't got may quests left to do in this area, but I'll probably still be in this area at the end of this week as well.

As such, I'm not getting particularly ground down by trying to finish it as quickly as possible nor extending play sessions beyond the point of getting burned out in one sitting. Both those kinds of behaviour are very prevalent on first-day and first-month of release players, as they compete to stay in the current conversation and also finally release their 15 years of hurt pent-up withdrawal symptoms.

I'm not sure the game is particularly well designed for binging as it doesn't, at this point, offer much in the way of breaks to it's established gameplay activities of combat, conversations, looting and levelling, most of which is through fairly uninteresting over-land wandering. In smaller doses, however, I'm finding everything to be really quite fun so far as well.
 
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
4,762
I'm playing it pretty slowly as well - I'm still in the White Marches. I tend not to have much playing time these days, so I rarely binge anything!
 
Joined
Apr 13, 2012
Messages
1,901
Location
UK
I'm still playing Monster Hunter: World.

Sunk in just short of 600 hours so far with 3 different characters.

Hunts are really fun but chance to obtain pretty outfits is a big driver for me as well lol.

I'm usually playing the game with my husband. I played through the majority of the content with my husband for my first character using light bowgun and dual blades - it was very fun experience. I rushed through the low level contents for my second character using bow and charge blade (my husband's first character carried mine) which was very unsatisfying because I ended up struggling high level contents using new weapons. So I rolled a third character using switch axe and heavy bowgun, played solo all the way up to high level content, which was much more satisfying experience :)

I will probably continue to sink in a lot more hours (at least until pre-beta for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is out!)
 
Control, just came out on Steam. And the news is it's also coming out on GOG. Awesome. I really want to support these guys since they're also bringing it out on GOG, so I'll probably get another copy.

Also the Steam copy was just 32 euros. A steal.
I have to admit that game looks interesting, it's not RPG, right?
Please share impressions after you explore it a bit more.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
I have to admit that game looks interesting, it's not RPG, right?
Please share impressions after you explore it a bit more.

Mechanically it's a 3rd person action adventure game similar to their other games (Max Payne, Alan Wake, Quantum Break). Most Remedy games use this same formulate, with certain flourishes that give each one a particular feel. But they're always decent to great. Control is also pretty great mechanically.

But where each one stands out is in world building/story/concept. And I'm loving Control so far. While Alan Wake took great influence from Twin Peaks, Control seems to be a mix of Twilight Zone and X Files. Haven't gotten far, but I'm liking it a lot so far. But then again, I'm a fan of most Remedy games, so that might not say much.

Not much more to say. If it sounds interesting, try it out. You can get pretty far in 2h on steam and refund it. Plus its only 32 euros.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,252
On breaks from Control I go for a 5-10 min boxing rounds in FitXR. Holy shit, it's awesome. And a great cardio workout. Yesterday I did about 5 rounds of 5-10 min of FitXR, and today found myself getting DOMS for my back muscles. Just from boxing. That's insane.

It's addictive as hell, and way more fun than running or going for walks. If nothing else, this is a great purpose of VR headsets. Especially completely wireless ones.
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,252
I have’t played that one, just a bit. I hear the story is a nice time traveling story. But it also has some not so wonderful live action cinematics tv-style. You play one section, then you watch a 20min or so live action episode. It’s been on my list for a while. But for 10 bucks, why not?
 
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
6,252
Back
Top Bottom