What are you playing?

GasBandit

Staff member
I've been having a much easier (stupid easier) time in MWO since I switched to a Catapult with LRM15s and Artemis. It's ridiculous.

1577005151507.png


To compare my performance with everybody else's:

1577005205926.png


The end of this match was also particularly hilarious, in that the last survivor of the enemy team was an urbanmech with 4 heavy machine guns... and nothing else. We were both pretty much pristine, but he got the drop on me inside the minimum arming range of my LRMs... so I had to face-brawl against him just with two medium lasers. Still beat him. Poor urbies. So trash.

Even on the occasion my team loses, I usually do so much damage as to not lose any skill rating.
 
You tried a Huntsmen or Trebuchet, @GasBandit ?

Treb does what Catapult does at a smaller size and weight, thanks to perks. Easily get 3 LRM15+As in there, plus 2 ERML and enough missiles to hit 1k damage easily. This works great with chain fire and stays quite cool. Little slow though. Huntsmen does what Treb does, but with slightly less effective 3 CLRM15+As, but it can pack C-Beagle, C-TAG, 2 ERML and Jump jets easily and has speed. I personally think this is the better of the two unless AMS is heavy. Main advantage of both is it frees up a slot for another Heavy on your team.

Archer's another option: it can do 3 or more LRM15+As depending on which variant, but without the huge fucking ears that are easy to pick off. You'll also have the tonnage to toss in BAP and Command if you want it.

I know the Catapult's a classic, but I don't think I've seen a good CAT build that wasn't huge LBXs for a long time.
 
Last edited:

GasBandit

Staff member
Well, you gotta appreciate I'm coming back into the game after a 6 year absence, and I'm completely broke. The last time I played this game, there wasn't even any clanner tech. All I have to my name is my Cicada, my Catapult, and a stripped-down stalker. And maybe a couple other random mechs like a jenner and a blackjack or something.

Anyway, the Catapult C4 with the 20s traded in for ALRM15s, an AMS, and two medium lasers with maxed armor seems to do just fine for me right now. With my skill tree, that ends up with over 2400 missiles to rain down on the enemy. And those medium lasers have actually saved my ass more than once tonight alone. And heat management is a breeze.
 
I finished Spider-Man yesterday and
IT WAS GOOD! It was so SO good! I thought the bosses were just going to be like the Arkham games where you mostly fight henchmen, and accepted that, but the last few fights with major names were great! The story was a neat tweak on different Spidey stuff, and I like that between the MCU, Spider-Verse, and this game, people telling Spider-Man stories understand that he's well-known enough a character and lore that they can not only start long after Peter Parker's spider bite, but also mess with some things and get inventive.

We still have the DLC to go, but I'm excited for the next game whenever that is.
 
I finished Spider-Man yesterday and
IT WAS GOOD! It was so SO good! I thought the bosses were just going to be like the Arkham games where you mostly fight henchmen, and accepted that, but the last few fights with major names were great! The story was a neat tweak on different Spidey stuff, and I like that between the MCU, Spider-Verse, and this game, people telling Spider-Man stories understand that he's well-known enough a character and lore that they can not only start long after Peter Parker's spider bite, but also mess with some things and get inventive.

We still have the DLC to go, but I'm excited for the next game whenever that is.
I'm a baby for Spider-Man stuff, dunno what it is about the character but there were two scenes at the end of the game where
I was pretty close to tears. Aunt May feels obvious but right after Peter picks up the serum after Doc falls and is laying on his back bargaining was huge for me as well.
 
Well, you gotta appreciate I'm coming back into the game after a 6 year absence, and I'm completely broke. The last time I played this game, there wasn't even any clanner tech. All I have to my name is my Cicada, my Catapult, and a stripped-down stalker. And maybe a couple other random mechs like a jenner and a blackjack or something.

Anyway, the Catapult C4 with the 20s traded in for ALRM15s, an AMS, and two medium lasers with maxed armor seems to do just fine for me right now. With my skill tree, that ends up with over 2400 missiles to rain down on the enemy. And those medium lasers have actually saved my ass more than once tonight alone. And heat management is a breeze.
Well if you can save up for it, I'd get an Archer-2R if you really want to go Missile Boat as a Heavy. It's got most of the same perks, but better slot placement and 5 more tons at the cost of a Missile slot, plus it's center Energy mounts are high up so you can peak better. You could even dump some of the ammo and pick up more armor/las for better performance after you've fired your missiles or just pick up some more heat sinks. You'll probably want to chain fire though.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
Among the Sleep

I'm glad that my quest for Steam trading cards got me to play this one. It's a first person horror game, but kinda horror-lite. It's unnerving, but there's zero gore, and not a lot of fail states. Almost a children's version of a horror game, since it's about a toddler having a nightmare. The story isn't deep, and the imagery is sometimes a little on the nose, but I still found it was a beautiful game that was fun to play. It's about as much horror as I usually care to endure.

I don't give it any strong recommendation, but if you've gotten it in a bundle, like I did, then it's worth the couple of hours it takes to play. (Don't bother trying to collect the hidden drawings, unless you want the achievements. They're hard to find, and best I can tell all they do is unlock a different pair of pajamas to wear, if you collect all of them.)
 
I'm a baby for Spider-Man stuff, dunno what it is about the character but there were two scenes at the end of the game where
I was pretty close to tears. Aunt May feels obvious but right after Peter picks up the serum after Doc falls and is laying on his back bargaining was huge for me as well.
Maybe I am too, or perhaps just a baby in general, but I had no restraint. At the obvious one, I was straight up crying. That was an amazing scene.
 
So I've been playing more Stardew Valley, and my wife sometimes watches me play or asks me questions. I've reached the point where I can start thinking about which bachelorette I want to marry. I mentioned this to my wife, "Hey, I can choose a girl to marry in the game now."

And she replied, "So which one are you going to marry?" *yandere stare*

"Um... the one who's most like you, of course! A girl called Penny!"

At which point she nodded in satisfaction and went back to what she was doing. Except every now and then she'll ask me if I've married Penny yet.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
So I've been playing more Stardew Valley, and my wife sometimes watches me play or asks me questions. I've reached the point where I can start thinking about which bachelorette I want to marry. I mentioned this to my wife, "Hey, I can choose a girl to marry in the game now."

And she replied, "So which one are you going to marry?" *yandere stare*

"Um... the one who's most like you, of course! A girl called Penny!"

At which point she nodded in satisfaction and went back to what she was doing. Except every now and then she'll ask me if I've married Penny yet.
Tell her "No, I married Linus." "Who is Linus?" "A homeless man."
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Finally did the grind enough to get myself to Tier 3 in MWO. Celebrated by buying myself a King Crab and sticking six AC/2s on it. Here's the results of my first mission in it.

1577324989901.png


Yeah, I think this will do.
 
Finally did the grind enough to get myself to Tier 3 in MWO. Celebrated by buying myself a King Crab and sticking six AC/2s on it. Here's the results of my first mission in it.



Yeah, I think this will do.
I've tried to 6 AC Crab... it's not bad, if you can get some good face time, but it really didn't work for me. Mine is currently running 6 Light MGs/2 LPL/MRM 40. It's got some great sandblasting potential.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
It's nice to not have to hide behind shit anymore. Just waddle my way out and melt any SOB who dares step out from cover.
 
Julie is now juggling Death Stranding, The Outer Worlds, and a replay of Dragon Age: Inquisition but now with DLC. I think we'll be coming to evenings soon where she's paralyzed with indecision.

I have the Spider-man DLC left to go and then I kind of want to take advantage of the PS4 holiday sale. Shadow of War definitive edition is only $15 ... or I could dip back into crack Dark Souls since the remaster is only $20.
 
Ah, so it’s a score.
I thought it was a total (like the two preceding lines), meaning that you had somehow done negative damage to a target.

—Patrick
 

figmentPez

Staff member
The other day I was thinking about my List of Shame, when I realized that I didn't have all the games I have through Twitch Prime on the list. That expanded my list by nearly 20 games.

First one down: Stranger Things 3: The Game

Overall this is a solid action-adventure game that takes some of the best parts of SNES era games and adds in just enough modern sensibility to improve things. I definitely recommend it. Took me about 10 hours to go slowly and be a completionist on Normal difficulty. Might be several hours shorter for someone who moves faster.

Pros:
- Most good pixel art. The characters are recognizable, enemy types have clear distinctions, and most of the game looks pretty good.
- Controls feel good, and combat is mostly enjoyable, though it can be a little repetitive and stilted. Fitting iwth the SNES inspiration.
- The crafting system feels rewarding, rather than arcane. All the recipes unlock automatically, all you have to do is find the ingredients and choose what to craft. Only one-of-a-kind ingredients are truly rare (other ingredients slowly increase in availability as the game goes on), and you never have to make a permanent choice between two different items.
- Side quests are quirky and add some nice flavor beyond the main plot.
- Puzzles are challenging, and mostly fun, with only a few feeling needlessly obtuse.
- The world is divided into different locations, and you can travel between them relatively freely, once they open up in the plot. Once you leave an area, you go to a map screen and choose any other area. No walking through multiple other areas to get where you need to.

Neutral:
- Follows the plot of the third season. I think game review magazines would have praised this back in the day, since the gameplay doesn't suffer because of it, but modern reviews complained because it wasn't something new. I did like that the previous mobile game was it's own story, but I can appreciate both.
- 2 player drop-in/drop-out co-op. It's always split screen, even when you're right next to each other (I think), and there's no built-in online (though Steam Play Together might work, in theory.) I have no one to test this with, so I'm not sure how well it works in practice, but if it works it should be fun.

Cons:
- The final boss is a letdown. I don't know why they didn't end with the big showpiece battle against the monster. (Spoiler, Stranger Things has monsters in that people fight, and since it follows the plot of season 3, they fight the same monster in the game.) Instead the final boss is a human villain, and the gimmick is that he's invulnerable unless you use the counterattack mechanic. And you have to do like a dozen or more counters. While lots of other bullshit is going on.
- I was playing on normal difficulty, and holy crap some of the end sections got bonkers for difficulty. Just huge floods of enemies while defending a location on a timer. With enemies that throw AoE grenades. I failed until I really min-maxed my loadout and used only the most OP characters for crowd control.
- Some of the gear doesn't seem very well thought out. Mainly becuase some characters are OP for combat, so why would you ever use items that buff a single character up to "not terrible", when you could make strong characters more useful?
- Robin isn't a playable a character. ( 0/10 an unplayable buggy mess. Do not buy.)
 
Have any of you Sword and Shield players found Gigantamax Butterfree yet?

We’ve been running around the wild area doing tons of raids with no luck.
 

Dave

Staff member
Yesterday was a day that I should mark on my calendar. I deleted PUBG from my hard drive. I was running out of space and my daughter wants to play Destiny 2 with me. I had to make a choice so something had to go. PUBG drew the short straw.

I still love the game, but the last few times I played it I just wasn't having any fun. I haven't played it in probably a month.

F in chat for PUBG.
 
I spent about 2 hours last night in the lobby of Bigscreen...it's a VR movie theater. I didn't want to watch movies with a bunch of mouthy kids, but I found it hilarious how pissed off they got when I threw tomatoes at them in the lobby.

My shoulder's sore ;)

1577465836004.png
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I spent about 2 hours last night in the lobby of Bigscreen...it's a VR movie theater. I didn't want to watch movies with a bunch of mouthy kids, but I found it hilarious how pissed off they got when I threw tomatoes at them in the lobby.

My shoulder's sore ;)

View attachment 32616
I've used bigscreen in the past with a decent amount of success to watch a movie I wanted to watch while streaming it to other people. I pitched the idea of a HF movie night, but it didn't get much traction because the few of us that have VR headsets didn't seem to all be enthusiastic enough for it, and had scheduling issues probably too.

But I did manage to watch a movie and stream it to several randos successfully.
 
I can see it becoming more popular when VR is more ubiquitous in the home. If all my IRL friends in Texas had VR, I can see us doing stuff like this
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I can see it becoming more popular when VR is more ubiquitous in the home. If all my IRL friends in Texas had VR, I can see us doing stuff like this
I've pitched it to a couple other friends, saying that Bigscreen works on the Oculus Go, which is only $200 and entirely standalone, but it also never went anywhere there, either.
 
I've pitched it to a couple other friends, saying that Bigscreen works on the Oculus Go, which is only $200 and entirely standalone, but it also never went anywhere there, either.
My dad sometimes uses it to watch football on the Quest as well.
 
Top