The Video Game Thread: What are you Playing?

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I had to take a Political science class twice because I couldn't stop myself from playing during lectures.
You must've beaten it multiple times if you played it enough to fail the class.
 
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You must've beaten it multiple times if you played it enough to fuck a class twice.
I only failed the class once. I came pretty close to getting the actual orb, but a gang of those draconians got me. Minotaur Berserker, best run I've ever had.
 
Ah, only once. I've corrected my post.


Is part of the game getting to the orb, then getting out with it?
Yeah, you got to get several runes from side branches to open a gate to the Orb of Zot. Then once you pick the orb up all hell breaks loose as you make your way back up to the exit. High level enemies spawn right next to you, and keep spawning all the way up the 20 something main dungeon levels.
 
I always get interrupted by work, life, and Roleplaying, so I have a million games I’m in the middle of.
Now that Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is out for $60 plus another $60 for the extra cool gear, I’ll go back and start the series from where I left off - the first one. :shock: By the time I’m done Valhalla will be actually sanely priced.

I’ve done Far Cry 1,2,3 and I’m currently on Primal. I have 4 and 5 waiting.

I have Greedfall, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Deliverance: Kingdom Come all partially done as well.

As you can tell, the Open World games usually suck me in and keep me mired. I did finish Skyrim though, as well as the expansions.
 
Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the games I’ll probably not resist the urge to buy at full price.
 
I always get interrupted by work, life, and Roleplaying, so I have a million games I’m in the middle of.
Now that Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is out for $60 plus another $60 for the extra cool gear, I’ll go back and start the series from where I left off - the first one. :shock: By the time I’m done Valhalla will be actually sanely priced.

I’ve done Far Cry 1,2,3 and I’m currently on Primal. I have 4 and 5 waiting.

I have Greedfall, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Deliverance: Kingdom Come all partially done as well.

As you can tell, the Open World games usually suck me in and keep me mired. I did finish Skyrim though, as well as the expansions.

Never did finish even core Skyrim.

I adore open works gaming, but my videogame habit is strongly skewed towards games with a co-op mode, as it’s something Mrs. The Butcher and I tend to do together — I hope we can try Red Dead Redemption 2, which is both open-world and co-op, next time it goes into sale.

But we’re still having a ton of fun with Vermintide 2 and still have unexplored content in Borderlands 3. And of course a bunch of uninstalled games. So who knows.
 
I have Greedfall, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Deliverance: Kingdom Come all partially done as well.

As you can tell, the Open World games usually suck me in
Watch out though - Red Dead 2 "open world" is very low on reactivity and relevance to the rest of the game. It's like a theme park you visit when you get tired of the main story. And the main story is linear as fuck. The dialogue is fine, as are the characters though, so if you're into that, go for it.
 
Now that Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is out for $60 plus another $60 for the extra cool gear,
$120 for a damn AC game? I'll never understand the fanboys who insist on buying it at full price.
 
$120 for a damn AC game? I'll never understand the fanboys who insist on buying it at full price.
to be clear the base game is 60, but the bells and whistles of cosmetics and booster packs (in a singleplayer game emulating MMO-esque practices!!) is what adds another 60.
 
to be clear the base game is 60, but the bells and whistles of cosmetics and booster packs (in a singleplayer game emulating MMO-esque practices!!) is what adds another 60.
I understand. It still boggles the mind that someone would theoretically have to pay $120 for the complete game, with all the bells and whistles.
 
Now I'm really tempted to pick up a PS5 so I can gank you online. :clown:

My wife seems fairly confident that she probably cannot be ganked... and she's not one to brag.

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I recently bought an NVIDIA Shield in lieu of buying a next-gen console, so I can use my Gaming rig to stream my games to my living room's TV. I have taken this time to try and actually finish The Witcher III. I immediately got sucked into secondary quests and witcher contracts (the latter I think has become my favourite type due to their short time frame and condensed decision trees for Players).

What I find interesting about TW3's narrative design is the approach to Geralt's morality. The Player has a narrow wiggle room of how to interpret the source character's view of the world - you can be a coarse, somewhat uncaring witcher with the view of 'there is no lesser of two evils, only evil' (or whatever the phrase is); or instead you can opt to be a more caring and sensitive type of witcher, who takes a broad approach to 'monster hunter' and lumps evil humans into the 'monster' category as someone necessary to defeat. Either one fits into the 'Geralt' as a plausible avenue (to me at least, a casual fan of the series).

For example, in Where the Cat and Wolf Play...
Geralt found a call for a witcher's help in a hamlet, and set out to meet the village's elder for more info. Upon arrival, it immediately becomes clear that there was a massacre here involving great evil, as necrophages are already feasting on the bodies - they were not the culprit of the evil, only drawn to it. Clues present a very thorough and skilled killer who left a single survivor, a small girl who is terrified of Geralt as she recognises his cat's eyes. Geralt pieces together the information and the scared child's witness report as making a fellow witcher the culprit, of a different school, though.

Geralt finds said witcher and gets to the bottom of this - he was asked to deal with a monster for a pre-approved payment, he held up his end but upon delivery of proof, the elder balked at paying in full, and instead tricked the witcher into letting his guard down and stupidly getting his village brutes to try and kill said witcher. The witcher flew into a fit of rage and not only killed those who made an attempt on his life but everyone in the village, save the child whose face reminded him of his sister's when he was a lad. he also lets slip that this is not the first time his has happened.


The player, Geralt, has a choice: enact vengeance on behalf of the village, or cede that he is no arbiter of moral law. I personally view Geralt as the killer of monsters, monsters being whomever I deem fit, and fought this witcher to the death. I took the girl to her only surviving relative, an aunt, who told me that not only were Geralt and his ilk monsters but that the girl would likely starve in her care as she was struggling to feed other mouths as is. I opted to hand her some money, not out of guilt but because I thought it was the right thing to do.

All along I was mindful that I could have just walked away - let the girl die alone in the village, let the other witcher go scot free, etc. The choices were available in a few branches and all would have been a valid interpretation of Geralt. The player is given the illusion of choice but within a narrow spectrum that aligns itself with the established character.

It's a great game, there's just a lot to do in it and I am easily distracted!
 
I got Project Warlock and Sid Meier's Pirates! on sale on GOG and have been switching between them on and off.
I only got Pirates because I can't find my old CD copy and have been having a blast with it. Within 2 hours I sank the Spanish Treasure Fleet, Stole Henry Morgans buried treasure, defeated Henry Morgan in personal combat, Took Henry Morgans Ship for a joy ride, Sank Henry Morgan's ship and sacked St. Augustine, Florida. I call it Henry Morgan's No Good Very Bad Day.

Project Warlock is a Doom-like shooter where you're the titular Warlock on a blood-soaked vengeance quest to destroy all evil. It's divided up into several Episodes that each have a unique theme and enemies, with each episode having several levels and each level being divided up into several maps, so there's a lot of content. What sets it apart from Doom however is the leveling and upgrade system called The Workshop where you can buff some states, gain new spells and upgrade your weapons. I like it but I think there are too few spells, I'm on the 3rd out of 6 levels and I only have 3 spells, one of which is a utility light spell. I also have a frustrating habit of dieing mere feet from the end of several Maps, partially due to my own incompetence, partially due to the exit always being blocked by a special Mob that shoots you if you don't kill it quick enough.
All in all $7 well spent.
 
Well, with the arrival of the PS5 the playing of the PS5 version of Demon's Souls has begun. Fans of the original, like my wife, think the remake is overdoing it at times, especially in the sound and music department, but overall the experience seems to be a positive one so far.

Looking at it as an outsider I must say both versions have their own charm. The remake is obviously visually much more impressive but the original did have an effective kind of minimalist approach. The remake has a notably cooler color palette. The style of the remake is more gothic, the original more romanesque.

tD9jtcK.jpg
 
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Well, with the arrival of the PS5 the playing of the PS5 version of Demon's Souls has begun. Fans of the original, like my wife, think the remake is overdoing it at times, especially in the sound and music department, but overall the experience seems to be a positive one so far.

Looking at it as an outsider I must say both versions have their own charm. The remake is obviously visually much more impressive but the original did have an effective kind of minimalist approach. The remake has a notably cooler color palette. The style of the remake is more gothic, the original more romanesque.

tD9jtcK.jpg

Yes the minimalism of the OG, probably due to tech or time limitations, was part of its alien atmosphere. But I still have my PS3 and disc if I want to play that, unless the new version comes with a 'classic play' skin?
 
Yes the minimalism of the OG, probably due to tech or time limitations, was part of its alien atmosphere. But I still have my PS3 and disc if I want to play that, unless the new version comes with a 'classic play' skin?
No, but there is an option to switch to a color filter titled "classic".
 
Got my new computer. Has an RTX 3080.

Playing Watch Dogs: Legion. I have mixed feelings. The new game is based on procedural characters -- the characters are generated at random instead of having one or more protagonists with fixed backgrounds. The game does a pretty good job of generating these, and the plot is designed around this variety, which is a bit impressive. They've also sort of setup a quasi-cyberpunk environment, with some characters having the colorful skins of that genre, though other than that this seems based on the current world.

However, the cost of the procedural generation of protagonists is in my opinion depth, as the game doesn't have as much connectedness with a standard protagonist you'd find in something like Assassin's Creed, the Bioware games, etc.

There's also some weird randomness that leads to odd combinations. For instance, I have a construction worker who's a skinny dark black female, who talks with a strong high pitched Irish accent. Not impossible, but highly improbable.

Gonna take a break from this and switch to Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, which I'll get some time in during my week off for Thanksgiving.
 
Came across a free demo on Gog of Inkulinati (it's on Steam too). It's a light, turn based strategy game. You play an illuminator with magic ink battling with drawn creatures. It's been a cute way to spend an hour. I have no idea how big or expensive the actual game will be.

Inkulinati_screenshot_1__1_.png
 
Picked up AC Valhalla because Vikings and I cannot stop myself from Vikings. Weirdly I think odyssey is more what I expected. This is definitely less assassins creed and more viking raiders creed which has some assassination on the side. It’s very easy to murder all of england. But one time I managed to get a target with only killing two guards well out of sight of anyone.
 
Steam is offering a massive discount on We Happy Few so I took a break from Doom Eternal (amazing game, it's on the GOAT list) to give it a shot. I was expecting a campy romp through a dystopian psychedelic 1960's England but ended up skulking around like a rat in a devastated countryside scrounging for trash. The game so far is mostly running, hiding, stealing, and hoarding punctuated by choking people out. The Mrs likes it but I am finding it a little grindy and repetitive so far. I feel like it's trying to be Bioshock with survival elements but failed because the developers didn't have enough money or time.

If someone has played this before, when does the fun start? Does the lore get any more interesting? After a couple hours it was painfully obvious to me what happened-
the people let the Germans take their kids and their guilt led them to taking Joy. Oh and Arthur sold out his brother.

The game + all DLC is only $13 on Steam right now. At a price that cheap I don't mind the money spent and am going to keep playing in hopes of an improvement.
 
I've got a bunch of things I've bought from GOG in the last few months (mostly turn based strategy, because that's mostly my gig with an occasional dip into CRPGs) but I've been low enough on spoons that I've mostly been replaying Master of Orion 2 or XCOM2: War of the Chosen instead. They're like the comfort food of computer games for me...
 
Ghost Recon: Breakpoint — anyone playing? Is it any good?

I’m not exactly eager to throw myself into another game but the Vermintide 2 crew wants to switch over to that and I’m not exactly thrilled by the release reviews. Though some reports suggest the game’s improved substantially since.
 
I've got a bunch of things I've bought from GOG in the last few months (mostly turn based strategy, because that's mostly my gig with an occasional dip into CRPGs) but I've been low enough on spoons that I've mostly been replaying Master of Orion 2 or XCOM2: War of the Chosen instead. They're like the comfort food of computer games for me...
MOO2 is pure love. Have you tried Alpha Centauri? Only other strategy game to rival MOO2 for me.

I rather like Endless Legends from the new generation.

War of the Chosen is pretty good too.

Ghost Recon: Breakpoint — anyone playing? Is it any good?

I’m not exactly eager to throw myself into another game but the Vermintide 2 crew wants to switch over to that and I’m not exactly thrilled by the release reviews. Though some reports suggest the game’s improved substantially since.
Poor reviews, if that matter, and I've found this Ghost Recon remake weaksauce. But with a multiplayer crew it should get some level of fun. I play Rainbow Six Siege for the same kind of tactical belicism, but I acknowledge it's a bit too hardcore and won't please everyone.
 
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