The Video Game Thread: What are you Playing?

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Voros

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I recently picked up Nioh and the remastered Shadow of the Colossus for PS4.

Nioh is a Souls-like with a strong Japanese folklore focus. Pretty good so far if often absurdly difficult in places. Souls is only middling difficult to me now but the learning curve here feels even more extreme.

nioh-screen-07-ps4-eu-09nov16.jpeg
 
My last thee video game plays were Ogre, Dawn of War and Battlefield 1
 
I finally got around to playing Dishonored. I finished that about a week ago. That was satisfying. When my nephews are over, we have been playing four player Halo, which has been a lot of fun. I play a little Cities: Skylines on and off. It's a pretty simple, relaxing game that my nephews like.

I haven't decided what to pick up next in my vast backlog of Steam and GOG games now that Dishonored is over.
 
I started Dishonored a while back, and then got distracted, probably by work. I should get back to it soon.
 
I started Dishonored a while back, and then got distracted, probably by work. I should get back to it soon.
I found it just the right length. I enjoyed it all the way through, but I'm ready to be moving onto something else, probably something less bleak in tone. It's kind of a miserable world to spend a lot of time in.
 
I really liked Dishonored, started to play the sequel but got a bit burnt out on it. I did a mostly non-lethal playthrough so the last fight was rather easy.
 
I really liked Dishonored, started to play the sequel but got a bit burnt out on it. I did a mostly non-lethal playthrough so the last fight was rather easy.
I actually started a playthrough a few years ago and did the first few levels, but I got distracted from it. I was being a little too obsessive about trying to do everything perfectly, going back to saves a lot.

This time I just played through and lets things fall as they may. I discovered you actually have a fair amount of leeway when it comes to killing people and raising the chaos level. I still managed to get the best ending, and it was a lot more fun living with my mistakes.

I already bought the sequel on a sale, and I definitely will get to it. Doing it back to back would be too much though. I'm stealthed out at the moment.

I liked how easy the final level was. It was kind of a victory lap by that point. It can often be annoying when a game tried to throw in some kind of boss fight even if it hasn't been that kind of game up until that point. Being able to take out the Admiral silently will he was in the middle of a crazy rant was good enough for me.

I did have a little trouble finding the key to let Emily out. It was the most disconcerting part of the game with regards to Corvo never talking. Emily was calling out from the room for help, asking if Corvo was there, and Corvo remains utterly silent. It came off as really creepy.
 
How many times can a man (and his wife) play through Borderlands 2 and/or Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel without getting bored?

I don’t know, not there yet.

Sometimes I kind of wish we’d play Diablo 3, or either Divinity: Original Sin, or some other co-op FPS or RPG. But then I get a shiny new gun and run off to a big shoot-out to test it and level up and everything’s OK with the world.
 
Heh, I haven't even gotten to 2 or the Pre-Sequel yet. Maybe after this play-through of 1, I'll finally get around to it ...
 
Super fun, definitely recommended. RPG elements (classes, customizable class abilities, XP, levels, and loot!) plus lots of fun shooting. Warning: in the main game, at least, it doesn't scale / level with you. Some areas will be way too hard if you haven't leveled up yet, so definitely keep an eye on your mission screen for the recommended level, and do them roughly in order of difficulty.
 
I've been playing a lot of games lately, and I have the lack of sleep to prove it. :tongue:

Assassin's Creed: Revelations. I got this one for free with my Xbox Gold subscription, so I tried it out to see what all the fuss is about. I can report that I... really freaking hate Assassin's Creed. And I don't even exactly know why. There's just this sense of oily smugness about the whole franchise, like it thinks it's ten times smarter than it really is. Nnnnnnnggggghhh. :angry:

Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death. This one, on the other hand, is just plain fun. Tons of humour, explosions, car (well, helicopter) chases, bad guys getting punched in the face, a square-jawed hero facing off against a smirking, cartoonishly evil villain and a lot of surprisingly great gameplay.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. Well, this one was... an experience. :shock: I'm not sure it was "fun," per se, but it's the sort of game that you're glad you played after the fact, even if it made you feel wretched all the time through. And it's certainly very, very pretty. And the combat is surprisingly fun, and manages the trick of having the animations match the player's skill level (as in: if you play badly, you can see Senua stagger around and barely keep her guard up, clearly an excuse for a warrior who just barely muddles through, whereas if you play well, she becomes a whirlwind of steely death whose every motion is perfectly calculated. That's something I miss in most games, actually. I usually feel especially pathetic early on, because my character looks competent and yet keeps getting killed because I suck).

Kingdom Come: Deliverance. I really love this game, but right now I struggle to get back to it, because I'm at the monk section. I have only just started the monk session, and I hate it already. Like, I play this game to fight like a knight and dress like a peacock - and then they force me to dress in a sackcloth robe and solve my problems peacefully! What gives? :thumbsdown:
 
Super fun, definitely recommended. RPG elements (classes, customizable class abilities, XP, levels, and loot!) plus lots of fun shooting. Warning: in the main game, at least, it doesn't scale / level with you. Some areas will be way too hard if you haven't leveled up yet, so definitely keep an eye on your mission screen for the recommended level, and do them roughly in order of difficulty.

I second this post in its entirety — with the caveat that I have never played BL1 beyond the starting area as Mrs. The Butcher didn’t care for the blockier, less intuitive UI.

BL2 is one of my favorite games ever (for the reasons above, plus great writing), and BL:tPS’s chief failing is being too short (also the writing is not nearly as good).
 
I second this post in its entirety — with the caveat that I have never played BL1 beyond the starting area as Mrs. The Butcher didn’t care for the blockier, less intuitive UI.

BL2 is one of my favorite games ever (for the reasons above, plus great writing), and BL:tPS’s chief failing is being too short (also the writing is not nearly as good).
As it turns out BL2 is the game I own, not the first one, so that's the one I am going to play.
 
I haven't been able to play any video games since my PS4 was stolen in the middle of the night earlier this week.

Which is sad because I've been dying to play Final Fantasy XV again, as well as Far Cry 5.
 
It was stolen?? I’m sorry to hear about that.
 
It was stolen?? I’m sorry to hear about that.
Yep. Forgot to lock the backdoor that night and when I went to bed, someone waltzed right in and took it.

It could have been worse though. They only managed to get away with the PS4 (they didn't seem to take anything else) and nobody got hurt.
 
I've been playing Monster Prom recently. If you like visual novels with cartoony graphics and lots of dick jokes I highly recommend it.
 
Yep. Forgot to lock the backdoor that night and when I went to bed, someone waltzed right in and took it.

It could have been worse though. They only managed to get away with the PS4 (they didn't seem to take anything else) and nobody got hurt.

Doc you got the worse luck. You may want to call all the pawn shops in your area if you have your serial number, I did that years ago and recovered the third of my record collection some douchebag stole.
 
I've been playing Duelyst. It's a combination of Magic: The Gathering and Chess. Granted, I've mostly been getting my butt handed to me, but the combination of CCG and a board game is intriguing. The main problem is that, like CCGs, you need to spend a fair amount of money to build a good deck. Or grind. A lot.
 
Doc you got the worse luck. You may want to call all the pawn shops in your area if you have your serial number, I did that years ago and recovered the third of my record collection some douchebag stole.

I did notify the police the morning after. I lost the serial number, but the Roanoke County Police will be informing the pawn shops to be on the lookout for a PS4 coupled with Far Cry 5 (that was the only other thing stolen from my house alongside the PS4).
 
Not playing it yet as it was just announced and won't be out until sometime next year, but this trailer has me very excited. A new science-fiction turn-based 4X strategy with mechs? Yes, please.


 
I got in some Borderlands 2 this week, but I put it aside. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but it looks like the perfect game to break out when my nephews are staying over. I'm saving it for later.
 
Enjoying Fortnite a lot and just picked up Firewatch as it is on sale on the PS4 for $5 right now.

Torment: Tides of Numenera is on currently on sale for $20 on Steam. Any opinions on it? I figure if I'm going to get it now is the time.
 
Enjoying Fortnite a lot and just picked up Firewatch as it is on sale on the PS4 for $5 right now.

Torment: Tides of Numenera is on currently on sale for $20 on Steam. Any opinions on it? I figure if I'm going to get it now is the time.

Firewatch is awesome. There’s a cool little nod to tabletop gamers in there.
 
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I've been playing Secret World Legends. It's an urban fantasy PC MMOG, steeped in Cthulhu mythos. It's central mantra is: "Everything is true." Every secret conspiracy theory, every urban legend, everything is true. My character wields a katana and utilizes blood magic while wearing a trenchcoat to fight zombies, demons and other mythological horrors. It's what made me recently think of Highlander. :tongue: Anyway, every once in a while you get an investigation mission where you have to observe clues and piece them together to solve riddles and such. It's the thinking person's MMOG. Of course, you can just DuckDuckGo/Google the answers, but where's the fun in that? :tongue:
 
I second this post in its entirety — with the caveat that I have never played BL1 beyond the starting area as Mrs. The Butcher didn’t care for the blockier, less intuitive UI.

BL2 is one of my favorite games ever (for the reasons above, plus great writing), and BL:tPS’s chief failing is being too short (also the writing is not nearly as good).
BL1... is a good proof of concept (Especially as it came soonish after Hellgate : London, another Diablolike FPS, which was not as good), but they don't really have the tone of the wastelands down yet. It's also really boring as most environments are so samey. Still, you get a fight on a bucket wheel excavator, so that's fun.

BL2 is, obviously, brilliant.

---

I've played a few things recently - Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Hyrule Warriors Definitive, Battle Chasers ; Nightwar for the swithc, Sentinels of the Multiverse on the iPad, Dark Souls 3 on PC, but the game I'm most interested in talking about is Grim Dawn.

It's a Diablolike, done by the same guys that did Titan Quest, and using a very similar set of game mechanics. You wake up after surviving being hung, in a vaguely victorian-ish world that has gone through a magical apocalypse (If I was going to RPG it, I'd go for Shadows of the Demon Lord). A small group of survivors offers shelter... if you you take care of some business for them first. So far, so Diablo. You can see how the rest of this goes; you level up, pick a class (The game has six skill trees, plus an extra two if you own the first expansion; you pick two trees to level your character in, and they're the usual melee / sneaky melee / shooting / various types of magic), buy skills, find loot, defeat monsters, etc. It's all pretty genre-standard, really, just well done; if you like ARPG's, Grim Dawn is worth your time already.

But the interesting part is that... you get to make decisions. You can talk to the NPC's, and pick your responses. You can talk to quest targets, and solve their issues in multiple ways - there's a quest where you are sent to find an NPC and bring them back to town, for example, and you can either talk them into going through your town portal or just say "I don't have time for this" and kick them through. There are situations where you get to pick a side, and it matters, and it affects the storyline a bit. None of this is particularly new for RPG's, I'll admit, but for the normally quite linear ARPG genre, it's a revolution. There are also lots of books scattered around the world, telling stories about the apocalypse; and you'll read them, because they give XP and because you've been trained by achievements to find every lore fragment a game has, but you'll also notice that they're... good, well-written pieces of short horror fiction.

And then there's the storyline itself. Without spoilers, by the end of it you've clearly made a difference, and things are getting better. It's not like Diablo, where you've just postponed the inevitable and everyone knows it; at the end of Grim Dawn, there's clearly a lot more to do, and it's going to be a lot more hard work, but you've proven you can help do it. It's a rare game that makes you feel like you've earned your status as a hero.

The base game is substantial, with four acts and a lot of quests and replayability in it. Currently there are two expansions out; Crucible is cheap and just an arena mode. It's fine, nothing really special. The big one is Ashes of Malmouth, which continues the storyline - two new acts, comprising about half as much content again as the base game, as well as upping the level cap, adding two more skill trees (Including the Necromancy tree, summoning fans), and improving the gear itemisation. There's a third expansion, Forgotten Gods, due this year, which should wrap up the game's storyline and set up for the sequel.
 
BL1... is a good proof of concept (Especially as it came soonish after Hellgate : London, another Diablolike FPS, which was not as good), but they don't really have the tone of the wastelands down yet. It's also really boring as most environments are so samey. Still, you get a fight on a bucket wheel excavator, so that's fun.

BL2 is, obviously, brilliant.

---

I've played a few things recently - Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Hyrule Warriors Definitive, Battle Chasers ; Nightwar for the swithc, Sentinels of the Multiverse on the iPad, Dark Souls 3 on PC, but the game I'm most interested in talking about is Grim Dawn.

It's a Diablolike, done by the same guys that did Titan Quest, and using a very similar set of game mechanics. You wake up after surviving being hung, in a vaguely victorian-ish world that has gone through a magical apocalypse (If I was going to RPG it, I'd go for Shadows of the Demon Lord). A small group of survivors offers shelter... if you you take care of some business for them first. So far, so Diablo. You can see how the rest of this goes; you level up, pick a class (The game has six skill trees, plus an extra two if you own the first expansion; you pick two trees to level your character in, and they're the usual melee / sneaky melee / shooting / various types of magic), buy skills, find loot, defeat monsters, etc. It's all pretty genre-standard, really, just well done; if you like ARPG's, Grim Dawn is worth your time already.

But the interesting part is that... you get to make decisions. You can talk to the NPC's, and pick your responses. You can talk to quest targets, and solve their issues in multiple ways - there's a quest where you are sent to find an NPC and bring them back to town, for example, and you can either talk them into going through your town portal or just say "I don't have time for this" and kick them through. There are situations where you get to pick a side, and it matters, and it affects the storyline a bit. None of this is particularly new for RPG's, I'll admit, but for the normally quite linear ARPG genre, it's a revolution. There are also lots of books scattered around the world, telling stories about the apocalypse; and you'll read them, because they give XP and because you've been trained by achievements to find every lore fragment a game has, but you'll also notice that they're... good, well-written pieces of short horror fiction.

And then there's the storyline itself. Without spoilers, by the end of it you've clearly made a difference, and things are getting better. It's not like Diablo, where you've just postponed the inevitable and everyone knows it; at the end of Grim Dawn, there's clearly a lot more to do, and it's going to be a lot more hard work, but you've proven you can help do it. It's a rare game that makes you feel like you've earned your status as a hero.

The base game is substantial, with four acts and a lot of quests and replayability in it. Currently there are two expansions out; Crucible is cheap and just an arena mode. It's fine, nothing really special. The big one is Ashes of Malmouth, which continues the storyline - two new acts, comprising about half as much content again as the base game, as well as upping the level cap, adding two more skill trees (Including the Necromancy tree, summoning fans), and improving the gear itemisation. There's a third expansion, Forgotten Gods, due this year, which should wrap up the game's storyline and set up for the sequel.

Both the ability to influence the storyline in a Diablolike ARPG and the necromancy/summoning tree push my buttons. I might have to look into this.
 
A while back I took the kids to a local Round Table Pizza (they like it, I don't) and got to play Dig Dug on a bona fide arcade machine. Does that count for this thread?
200px-Digdug.png
They also had Galaga!
galaga.jpg
 
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I'm mostly playing the new single player challenges for the Friday the 13th game (PS4), and clicking my way through a mindless Marvel mobile game (Marvel Strike Force).

Getting my Street Fighter on, since Street Fighter V is on sale, and the 30th Anniversary Collection is coming next week.
 
Just started BL2. Pretty great so far. I am having some trouble getting used to the menus - they seem very busy-looking, and it's hard for me to find things, but I probably just need to get used to it. It's also weird when the techno club music starts playing during combat. I'm used to the peace and quiet of BL1. :smile:
 
I'm playing Mugman. I've got 70% completion at this point. Hah! Nothing to it! And they said this was supposed to be hard! Why, I've only died about 600 times so far... :tongue:

Torment: Tides of Numenera is on currently on sale for $20 on Steam. Any opinions on it? I figure if I'm going to get it now is the time.

I cannot think of a single bad thing to say about TToN, and yet after having played it for just a few hours, I have not the slightest urge to continue playing it. There's just too much random weirdness to get any sort of feeling for the world you inhabit, and that keeps me from caring about any of it. I have the same problem with the TTRPG that it's based on, come to think of it.
 
I cannot think of a single bad thing to say about TToN, and yet after having played it for just a few hours, I have not the slightest urge to continue playing it. There's just too much random weirdness to get any sort of feeling for the world you inhabit, and that keeps me from caring about any of it. I have the same problem with the TTRPG that it's based on, come to think of it.

This is an interesting thought and I'm going to make a separate thread out of it.
 
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