What are you playing?

Just got Stellar Tactics on the Steam sale. This is an old school isometric sci-fi RPG. So far I'm absolutely loving it!
Bought it based on your mini review. It sounds exactly like the kind of thing I like. And I'm liking it so far...though after a lockup, i'm now spamming quicksave after every fight.
(I've only had the one lockup..which doesn't really bother me. It's in early access, after all)
 
I've finished The Last of Us 2 now. I don't know if I enjoyed it, mostly because it's not an enjoyable or joyful game but it is well made and I do think despite it's brutality it still manages to tell a touching story about flawed characters and, ultimately, I feel it's a fantastic game.

I can understand how just reading the spoilers as I assumed they were presented would turn people off and may have even done so to myself had I read them. You don't get the nuance of Abby's character without playing as her and reading it as a condensed "this is how the story plays out" sort of kills any chance you'd have to sympathize with her.

I HATED the pacing shift from finishing Ellie's section to taking over Abby and switching back to day 1, particularly right after she kills Jesse which brings your blood to boil all over again like when you see her kill Joel.

And then you spend 3 days as Abby, that pick up right as Ellie gets to Seattle, where she returns to the Wolves after finishing what she'd set out to do 4 years earlier. You see glimpses of her as a young girl, exploring with her father, the Doctor Joel, now canonically, kills to "save" Ellie. And as you play through her section you realize slowly that you're now playing Joel again from the first game, at least in arc. She has done monstrous things, and not always just to survive, but a chance encounter begins to soften her and in the course of those three days she pushes to save sworn enemies and leave the structure she's come to know as home since her departure from the Fireflies. And as she sets out to give Yara and Lev a better life than she's had, Ellie and her group are slaughtering your friends, unknown to Abby until they meet again after finally coming across Ellie's revenge path.

Then, when it comes to a head, you understand why both have done what they've done to this point. It hurts more to see the loses on Ellie's side, these are characters that you've spent an entire game with up to this point for some, and a significant portion of this one with but if you can't feel for Abby's loss as well, you don't have any right forgiving and looking past what Ellie's done. I can't say either is justified but I can empathize enough to understand what would drive them to their end goals.

There's a fight. A grizzly, gnarley fight where you control Abby and fight Ellie and it sucks. It sucks because at this point, I don't want either of these characters to hurt each other anymore but you have that perspective as an outside observer into both stories, they don't. Abby gets the upper hand, it looks like it's over and...she tells Ellie to go, she never wants to see her again. She lets her live.

Ellie and Dina move away from Jackson to raise J.J. on a farm and despite finally having what she wanted, Ellie still can't get closure after Joel's murder. She doesn't sleep. She has vivid PTSD flashbacks of the night. Tommy arrives with news of a rumor and a promise unfulfilled, that Ellie would make Abby pay for what she did. (Sidenote: This really pissed me off about Tommy, but I get it, again. Joel's death has consumed him as much as it has Ellie and he's in no physical condition at this point to chase a rumor.)

So she leaves, even after Dina tells her that she won't wait and that she and J.J. won't be there if she does finish this and returns. More characters are introduced that come off as vile, as is the flavor of the world at this point, though you're not certain to exactly what end. They've captured Abby and Lev. Ellie is injured but is an arrow. She's close now and pushes her way through the chaos toward where Abby is being kept. When she arrives she is exhausted, beaten and finds Abby strewn up baking in the sun, having been left to die after attempting to escape with Lev. She cuts them down and Abby suggests there are boats this way. They are about to depart again but Ellie cannot just let this go.

So again, they fight, Abby, emaciated and sun blistered, Ellie battered and bleeding from a wound in her side. You control Ellie this time and again, I didn't want this but you're forced to play it out. Ellie loses fingers from a bite on her strumming hand but ultimately she takes the fight and begins to drown Abby after a vicious brawl until a flash of Joel, from a quieter time in Jackson the night before he was killed, appears in Ellie's mind and she too lets Abby live. They both go their separate ways.

Ellie returns to the now empty farm and gets to her room when all her belongs are packed away. She pulls out her guitar, given to her by Joel who taught her to play, and tries to play but it's stilted and weak. The loss of her fingers, and her pursuit of revenge, taking another part of Joel from her.


Ellie ultimately makes a lot of dumb decisions but I don't know that they are out of character necessarily and driven by her rage and desire to make her life mean something after, in her eyes, Joel took that from her by taking her from the Fireflies in Salt Lake City and stopping the possible vaccine creation, you can see why she'd chose such a destructive, self-immolating path. Particularly that his murder occurs the night after she and he make amends after years of shutting him out when she found out the truth about what happened in Salt Lake.
 
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GasBandit

Staff member
There's this incredibly well reviewed co-op shooter roguelike called Gunfire Reborn. Emrys and I tried it out tonight.

It's highly overrated.

I mean, it has potential, but it's incredibly unpolished, the translation is a constant barrage of Chinglish, the tooltips that pass for a tutorial don't really do much to explain the mechanics of the game. ("Your Widgetry is important to the advancement of your character! But not too much! Careful about your widgets!" ... what???), the gun drops are kind of randomized like borderlands but unbalanced as heck (sniper rifles are universally garbage), and it's extremely heavy on twitch reflexes as opposed to tactics or strategy. Worst of all, the difficulty ramp merely consists of "enemies now have more HP and do more damage than previous." The lazy way out.

I mean, it's only 12 bucks, so I'm sure it's super popular with the fortnite kids with a $12/week allowance looking to slum it in something with a change of pace, but it really doesn't resonate with me at all right now.
 
I got Satisfactory with my husband because it's a game we can play together where one of us isn't already pretty good at it and just doing everything for the other person.

But Holy Fuck is my base a trainwreck.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I got Satisfactory with my husband because it's a game we can play together where one of us isn't already pretty good at it and just doing everything for the other person.

But Holy Fuck is my base a trainwreck.
Emrys watching me play: "How the hell do you remember where everything is?"
Me: "Because I put it there."
Meanwhile, in my towering 5-story urban sprawl:
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Welp, I just tried Dying Light for the first time. Try being the operative word because I turned it off and refunded it after about 30 minutes. Parkour and a first person view just don't jive. I was kind of digging the setting, graphics, and such, but once I got to the parkour tutorial, it was just an exercise in frustration.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Welp, I just tried Dying Light for the first time. Try being the operative word because I turned it off and refunded it after about 30 minutes. Parkour and a first person view just don't jive. I was kind of digging the setting, graphics, and such, but once I got to the parkour tutorial, it was just an exercise in frustration.
Terrik and Dei and I had a lot of fun with this game. I guess if it's just not your thing, it's just not your thing.
 
Terrik and Dei and I had a lot of fun with this game. I guess if it's just not your thing, it's just not your thing.
Yeah, I was already getting hurt or dying during the tutorial. Frustrated missing jumps, etc. I figured, "Fucking hell, if it's like this in the tutorial, I don't stand a chance in the real game."
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I don't think we actually played it for that long.
Eh, we did get only about a quarter through it. But we didn't stop playing because of the Parkour or anything. It seems more like it was a scheduling thing. (coughTERRIKcough)
 
I found a text-based adventure game that's run by an AI. It has a LOT of problems, with adventures quickly going off the rails, but this means you can do stuff like:

Code:
> You cast lightning bolt at demon.
You attempt to cast another lightning bolt at the demon, but you don't actually aim at it. Instead, you aim at where its head was.
However, it turns and sees you.

> You remove clothes.
You pull off your shirt and cast the lightning bolt at the demon.
You feel a shock of lightning go through your body and you fall to the ground, your clothes still on fire.

> You throw pants at demon.
You pull off your pants and cast the lightning bolt at the demon.
You feel a shock of lightning go through your body and you fall to the ground, your clothes still on fire.

> You flash demon.
The demon is struck by lightning and disappears, turning into ash.
You stand naked in the woods with a bloody dagger in your hand.
 
Seriously, this thing is hilarious. Some highlights of where the AI's taken me so far:

> You throw thumbs at woman.
The thumbs hit the woman in the eyes and blind her.
"If you loved me," the woman says, "you would not throw my thumbs at me."
> You tickle space marine.
You walk up to the space marine and tickle him, as he attempts to hit you with his gun. The space marine fails, and instead you grab him and tie him up with rope that you draw from your pocket. The space marine begins to struggle, but you quickly tie his legs together.
"Hey, what are you doing?" the space marine asks. "I'm securing you into place," you reply.
> You search meliodas.
You open Meliodas's body, and take out his soul gem. Your stomach turns at the smell, as the smell is almost like that of a rotting corpse.
"Here," Meliodas says. "Kill the Emperor."
You look at Meliodas, who's dead. You take a deep breath, before walking up to the Emperor.
 
Damn, I just picked up Monster Train (a legit copy) and it carried over my progress from my pirated copy. I honestly wanted to start fresh.

And I'm an idiot, there's literally an option to do that in the ingame settings. GUD.

Man, hilarious what experience does for you. Absolutely crushed my first run, evening performing two trials along the way. I only have one friend of 5 that has a higher one run score than me from the get go.
 
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I am really liking PoE on PS4. I don’t think I got far on PC as I don’t remember any of the places I’ve been.

Our oldest decided to play too. She’s having trouble with the Siren, so I promised to help if we can figure out multiplayer.

I’m doing ok so far, but I found this weird hidden boss that I couldn’t even hit. I was able to dash away each time as my flasks went empty, but nothing I did hit him. It was weird.
 
Emrys watching me play: "How the hell do you remember where everything is?"
Me: "Because I put it there."
Meanwhile, in my towering 5-story urban sprawl:
View attachment 34466
Our co-op factory is a disaster with the machinery, but we at least set up all of the storage bins neatly on the first floor so they are easy to find. Of course, we just got to coal power so... lolololol.

Also, Multiplayer is laggy as fuck for the joining player. I wish there was an option to set it to LAN, but I have a feeling it wouldn't help.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Also, Multiplayer is laggy as fuck for the joining player. I wish there was an option to set it to LAN, but I have a feeling it wouldn't help.
I've noticed this too, with my friend just down the street. Also, when I log out of his game, my character just keeps standing there like a statue.

Still very early access, I guess.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
In other Satisfactory news, I finally managed to build up high enough (with some Jetpack assistance) to jump onto the back of the Sky Manta as it flew under the rock arch. Got some sweet pictures.

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How it felt:

 
Outer Wilds.

Currently an Epic store exclusive for PC, which blegh, but I've heard multiple people raving about it and it sounded intriguing enough. Enough for me to break my no new games this year vow (I've been good for 8 months now, 1 game is a far cry from the several 10's I'd normally have bought at this point last year.)

Ignoring for the moment the exclusivity and taking the game as it is, it's hard to sell without ruining the magic of what makes this game amazing and it's biggest hook which is better left to discover yourself.

As a new explorer of the fledgling Outer Wilds space team, you're tasked with visiting your immediate solar system, for the fun of it and also trying to unravel the mysterious Nomai culture that came before you. You awaken in the morning facing the stars, as is tradition for every young Outer Wilds astronaut before their first launch. A large explosion is silhouetted against a neighbouring planet which none of the other residents seem to notice nor are concerned about. You run through some tutorials by way of mini-quests to familiarize yourself with your tools, a signal finder and a probe camera launcher, tools to aid in your exploration and survival.

After some discoveries and likely some missteps which end in your untimely death, or if you do manage to survive
your closest star going supernova, all fades to black and you're met with a rapid-fire series of images recounting your last day in reverse.

You awaken in the morning facing the stars, as is a tradition for every young Outer Wilds astronaut before their first launch. A large explosion is silhouetted against a neighbouring planet which none of the other residents seems to notice nor are concerned about.

And no one else seems to realize all of this has already happened.

Your ships logs retain all the past knowledge you've gathered and now it's time to set out again, once more into the time loop.

Outer Wilds is a survival game of sorts though I'd hazard exploration/puzzler/mystery is more apt. There is no inventory to manage, your resources simply your oxygen and fuel, easily maintained by returning to your ship and don't involve the often tedious mining or foraging common in survival games. The closest comparison to another game in terms of how it plays that I've played would be Firewatch.

If you can bring yourself to ignore the Epic exclusivity(a tall order), play it on Xbox or just wait until it hits steam eventually it really is something special and I can't recommend it enough.
This is available on Steam now FYI and I still maintain it's one of my favourite games of last year if not all time.
 
SO I played A LOT of the first Divinity OS but for whatever reason I never got around to playing the second game.

Here I am, not far into it and a salt-water crocodile cast Scaleportation, teleported directly in front of us, like 10 feet of the ground and does this little leg scuttle before falling down. Good GOD I can't wait for Larian's Baldur's Gate 3.
 
I've started playing Breath of the Wild, just finished the tutorial part of the game and left the isolated plateau. Quite liking it so far.

Some thoughts:

1. I like how this game appears to be huge in scope. Zooming out from my map and looking at how small the isolated plateau is compared to the whole game world is both daunting and encouraging. I like big open world games.
2. I'm not a huge fan of the equipment durability mechanic.
3. Gaming with a controller takes some getting used to. I used to be pretty much an exclusively PC gamer, so not being able to move my camera quickly and precisely with my mouse takes some getting used to.
4. Zelda is hot.
 
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