What are you playing?

Still playing This War of Mine. I created a scenario where there's just two people in a house, named after me and my wife. The character based on my wife is better at scavenging, so at night she goes out to search for supplies. One night she came across some other civilians in a decrepit house, and with the brutal looter playstyle I'm using these days, she immediately opened fire and killed them all, and took their stuff.

However, killing innocents in this game takes a psychological toll, so she fell into depression, which meant she couldn't sleep at night for a couple of days after, and would instead stay awake, sobbing.

Which led to this now unforgettable line from the game: "No one got any sleep last night, (Wifename) spent the whole night crying out."

:unibrow:
 
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus- Man this game hit all the sweet spots for me. Awesome soundtrack, takes the lore very seriously, X-COM style gameplay, and surprisingly well-written dialogue. Praise the Omnissiah!
 
We finished Shadow of War yesterday. Really weird way to do the ending, but the gameplay held up all the way. I really love that the Nemesis system let me drive a troll out of his mind, then I let him kill me so he became strong again, killed his overlord, took his place, and then killed his last warchief thinking the warchief was one of my spies. I then reinstalled the old overlord who had turned on me, because we're smart.

I'm not sure what to play next. PS Plus gave the Bioshock HD trilogy last month and Shadow of the Colossus HD this month, plus I bought Dark Souls HD in the last big sale, but now I'm feeling there's something wrong here when my big choices are to replay old favorites with slightly prettier appearances.
 
I saw that Mortal Kombat X was on sale on Steam, so I bought it and gave it a try. Unfortunately I really wasn't feeling it, it just didn't capture the magic of the older MK games that I enjoyed. It's still a good game, I think, but it just wasn't my jam. Sort of like how I also thought Injustice was a good game (made by the same dev, so no wonder) but it just wasn't for me. So I refunded MKX and now I have money in my Steam wallet I'm looking to spend.

In the meantime, though, inspired by @Fun Size, I decided to fire up Half-Life 2 again. Oooooooh mama, it's like injecting nostalgia directly into my veins. So damn good.
 

Dave

Staff member
I'm really, REALLY fucking annoyed at Path of Exile right now. I've had nothing but trouble keeping my HC characters alive. Never made it past Act 3. Hell, never made it to the final boss of Act 3. So I said fuck it and started a new character who is NOT hard core. I just hit Act 4 today...and I have yet to die.

Fucking figures.
 
I saw that Mortal Kombat X was on sale on Steam, so I bought it and gave it a try. Unfortunately I really wasn't feeling it, it just didn't capture the magic of the older MK games that I enjoyed. It's still a good game, I think, but it just wasn't my jam. Sort of like how I also thought Injustice was a good game (made by the same dev, so no wonder) but it just wasn't for me. So I refunded MKX and now I have money in my Steam wallet I'm looking to spend.

In the meantime, though, inspired by @Fun Size, I decided to fire up Half-Life 2 again. Oooooooh mama, it's like injecting nostalgia directly into my veins. So damn good.
On the other side, I thought MKX was the best MK game they've produced in, ever, and felt that MK11 was a real step down, making it more like injustice than the fantastic game that X was.
 
I restarted Bioshock, and I've got to say that this is so far the best example of PC versus console for me. I remember getting frustrated not being able to hit the splicers dancing around the screen. Cut now to me with my gaming mouse, and I'm pulling down headshots before they even see me. So good. I'm definitely going to spend the next few months bouncing between Bioshocks and Half Life 2 chapters.
 
Just tried playing My Friend Pedro. It's a fun idea (2-d shooter with cool tricks and bullet time), but you have to keep track of so many moves and buttons all at once. Like having to hold the lock target button AND the dodge button just to survive encounters with 3+ enemies.

Then it starts adding in other elements like dangling from ropes, explosives, etc. Even with the generous amount of bullet time, it's still too many things going on at once for me.
 
Been playing Breath of the Wild. They weren't kidding about just getting lost in exploring Hyrule.
Main quest? Fuck that shit, that mountain over there needs climbing!
 

figmentPez

Staff member
Battle Chef Brigade
This is a match-3 puzzle game meets 2D side scrolling platform beat-em-up. The plot is fantasy Iron Chef anime. Basically you kill monsters to gather ingredients, which then serve as the gems you match by stirring them around in your pans (grid). I'm loving it. The art is beautiful, the voice acting is charming, the gameplay has some variety with pre-made puzzles, and speed cooking (with no ingredient gathering).

The problem is that competing ramps up my anxiety, even though I've yet to fail, and I've read that you just get to try again. But I've also read there's a big difficulty spike. I'm not sure why I'm so worried about getting stuck in this game.

So to take a break, I tried: A Story About My Uncle
This game is bad. Really bad. I've heard a lot of people question why someone would make a first person puzzle platforming game, but Zeno Clash managed to be an interesting game despite being a first person brawler. Uncle has none of the redeeming qualities that Zeno Clash has.

First, let's talk about the gameplay, and how it just does not work. What the designers seem to want is a puzzle game where the player has to figure out how to traverse each area using a limited amount of movement skills, which reset after landing on the ground. This works in a game like Celeste, where the controls are tight, the level design is clear, and the physics are relatively consistent. Uncle has none of this. The controls are awkward, the level design is terrible, and the physics will have you attempting the same segment over and over because everything is so fiddly.

I was trying to complete a very long jump and the game had a pop-up message telling me "To cover a longer distance, rocket boost later, and aim well above the island". The developers knew this was a problem, but I don't think they realized that the problem goes well beyond players just not knowing the most effective way to deploy a new ability. The problem is that you have to grapple hook before you rocket jump, and it's hard to build momentum from that, because you don't so much swing from your grapple, as build up momentum directly toward the object you're grappling from, and if you got the wrong angle on your first grapple, by the time you're on your third it's really easy to be building momentum in a very wrong direction. And you only get three grapples.

If you've played Batman: Arkham City or Knight, imagine trying to get from one building to another by grappling, only you don't get to glide, if you even come close to hitting the object you're grappling from you loose most of your momentum, some of the grapple points are moving, it's difficult to determine their distance from you, and it's not at all clear where your final destination is. Oh, and there's no ground, just a void below to fall into, over and over.

Just before I gave up on Uncle, there was a room full of falling blocks that it expected me to traverse this way. A bunch of random blocks, falling at different speeds, in no set pattern, that I was expected to grapple to, and then land on to reset my movement abilities, and then continue on. Trying to figure out a random path each time, with blocks that might fall too fast to actually land on.

Oh, and the segment where a one-eyed monster, whose eye is a searchlight, will kill you if you move while it's awake. What's the point of this? Aside from making you wait 10 seconds for it to wake up, look around, and go back to sleep in between each grappling segment? Absolutely nothing. All it does is slow down the gameplay. You have to keep up momentum while grappling around anyway, so I'm not sure it's possible to take those segments slower, so it's not forcing you to move faster, just wait longer on the ground in-between.

And why are you making me trigger light sources with my grapple gun? The ridiculously short time the light lasts aside, do you know how annoying it is to try and turn on a light, only to realize that your grapple just hit the dark rock you couldn't see, but is still somehow blocking your grapple, and have it pull you off the path and down into the darkness?

But enough about the gameplay, let's talk about the creepy racist undertones to the plot! Blah blah kid goes to his inventor uncle's house and finds him missing, embarks on journey through mysterious portal to find uncle, meets aliens who speak English, blah, blah, blah. "I couldn't believe that I was having a conversation with someone who wasn't even human", "She was cute and I liked her, but she wasn't even human." The voice acting is bland, the art design is bland, the story is stilted, the world design makes absolutely no sense (How do the natives get around their crazy city with holes in the bridges, or nothing at all connecting their floating islands?) Oh, and the uncle you're searching for is the stereotypical white savior archetype who taught these aliens about science!

I'm done. I've got my trading cards, I won't be playing any more. With a mod to give unlimited grapples, this game might have been interesting, but the developers clearly did not know how to make the game they wanted to.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Borderlands 3 is finally on steam, and is on sale now for 50% off.

So I was trying it... playing it with a couple friends... and yeah, this is alright I guess, and then I unlocked THIS SKIN.

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Hellloooooooooooooo NURSEANOVA.
 
One of the things I firmly believe every portable system needs is a Breakout clone. Luckily the Switch has Strikey Sisters. Looks like a SNES game plays like, well like a Breakout clone. What did you expect? Let the ball bounce off you to move at a slow speed or press X to hit it with your sword & make it move faster, press Y to cast any magic you pick up. Would be nice if the 2 sisters played differently instead of just being palette swaps of each other but this fits my "I've got 5 mins to fill & I want to play Breakout" itch quite well.
 
Just tried F1 2019 for the hell of it. It's on a free weekend, so I thought what the hell. Minutes into starting a game and there's zero tutorial or any indication of what the controls are. Real help for someone with zero familiarity with racing games. Uninstalled.
 
So with a few days off and stuck at home doing the responsible social distancing, I decided to check out what steam had to offer, and discovered a visual novel called Acting Lessons. From the screenshots it looks like your typical 3D rendered boobie game, which hey, I'm all for, but it came with unusually high ratings.

And now, in playing it, it has gone from being a goofy porno to suddenly having a serious story with interesting characters, conflicting emotions, and complicated relationships. I now find myself skipping through the sex to get back to the story.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
So with a few days off and stuck at home doing the responsible social distancing, I decided to check out what steam had to offer, and discovered a visual novel called Acting Lessons. From the screenshots it looks like your typical 3D rendered boobie game, which hey, I'm all for, but it came with unusually high ratings.

And now, in playing it, it has gone from being a goofy porno to suddenly having a serious story with interesting characters, conflicting emotions, and complicated relationships. I now find myself skipping through the sex to get back to the story.
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I'm in kind of a weird place these days in that I don't want to play anything new, I just want to go back to older games I've played before and replay them for Nostalgia's sake. I've gone through This War of Mine, Half-Life 2, Dwarf Fortress, etc. Now I've reinstalled Mass Effect again. Still as good as I remember it. I think I'll load my character into Mass Effect 2, and replay that one too when the time comes.

I've never played the third one though, and don't really want to.
 
3 is only really bad in its last hour. And that ultimately a lot of the choices you made throughout the series don't really matter but the journey to get there is still great and it has some of my favourite moments in the series.

But Maurader Shields is the real hero of the series.
 
Yeah but I don't wanna install Origin. I already have Steam and Uplay and Rockstar Launcher and a whole bunch of others I probably don't even remember, I really don't feel like getting yet another client to play games.
 
I've been playing this one map on Beat Saber on and off for the past six months or so, finally beat the freaking thing. Feels good.

Now I just need to beat it on Expert+ :aaah:
 
The Resident Evil 3 remake demo dropped yesterday. I spent most of it screaming.

I still need to play Resident Evil 2, so I guess I know what to buy from the PS4 March sale.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Doom Eternal is the first (non-VR) game I've gotten since getting my 1060 that I can't run at the visual settings I want, and have had to compromise to maintain 60 fps :/

It's fun, though. Not sure why they moved around some of the buttons, but it's fun. Just bear in mind if you play it, the chainsaw is now going to be MUCH more a part of your life because there is NEVER enough ammo. Fortunately, they made it so the chainsaw regenerates fuel slowly when it's empty, back up to 1, so you will almost always have enough fuel to at least chainsaw a minor opponent and get more ammo.

I'm not sure I really understand if/how the plot connects to that of Doom 2016, but the nice thing is, it's Doom, you don't have to care about the plot. Rip and tear, until it is done.
 

fade

Staff member
I've played Divinity Original Sin a good bit lately. I like the fights, but the story is kind of trite and a little boring. Even the side quests are pretty cliché. Also I don't particularly care for the amount of tedious searching required to advance the story. It feels like the authors consider this a challenging puzzle, but when the solution is just searching, well, I'm just going to Google it. For example, finding the lich's body. Yeah, everyone keeps making perception hints to you. I get it. I need high perception. But then the boring part is you have to find the exact section of wall and get right up next to it, even with a god-like perception. That's tedious, not fun. Or the weresheep. Okay put some kind of plant near some kind of tree in the phantom forest. There are what 20 or more plant types and the phantom FOREST is full of trees. Tedious. But the battles are a little chess-like, and they're not pushovers like most CRPG fights, so it's got that...
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Much like it has always been since Doom 2, the "super shotgun" is a highly overrated piece of slow-firing shit. It's even worse now in a game that requires ultra fast high dps.

And "checkpoints" are for fucking console tards. This is a PC. Let me save wherever the fuck I want.

"You know what Doom needs? More jumping puzzles. Every other FPS may have learned its lesson about stupid platforming bullshit in the 90s, but this awesome game could really benefit from more bullshit platforming jumping puzzles." - Nobody ever
 
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"You know what Doom needs? More jumping puzzles. Every other FPS may have learned its lesson about stupid platforming bullshit in the 90s, but this awesome game could really benefit from more bullshit platforming jumping puzzles." - Nobody ever
That's probably my biggest complaint about Destiny 2.

--Patrick
 
Much like it has always been since Doom 2, the "super shotgun" is a highly overrated piece of slow-firing shit. It's even worse now in a game that requires ultra fast high dps.
I was watching somebody playing on Ultra Violent and making good use of it. I think it's more effective there because enemies have more health and you need the bigger burst to drop things quick.
 
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