The Video Game Thread: What are you Playing?

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Super Robot Wars T arrived over the weekend. I'm a few missions in.

It's suffering some of the same problems as X did. Namely, the start of the game is filled with characters and mecha I'm unfamiliar with and don't care about. Luckily, there aren't as many as X had which I find actively irritating. Unfortunately, it is saddling me with Mobile Fighter G Gundam idiots right out of the gate. This is also my very first exposure to Cowboy Bebop and I already strongly dislike the characters from it which have appeared so far.

Of the new guys, Van from Gun X Sword is in my party. I kind of like him. He's OK so far, but I can see that he's dripping with stale tropes, so unless surprising stuff happens as his story progresses, I probably won't bother checking out his anime.

On the good side, Mazinger Z joined the party very early. I don't like the anime franchise, but I do like the mech in SRW games.

Ruri and the Nadesico B made a short appearance, which made me happy. The bad thing is that it feels like her accuracy has been nerfed hard. This is a problem I'm noticing on all the characters, but Ruri and the Nadesico in particular don't seem to be able to hit squat. Time to upgrade Sight.

Captain Harlock and the Arcadia appeared. Oddly, they didn't make the Arcadia as strong right at the start as the Yamato was in V. That surprised me as I expected the Arcadia to be a monster. Oh well. At least I'm fairly sure that eventually I'll get the giant bayonet on the front of the ship. :smile:

So far the main hero mech is OK. It's attacks are a bit bland, but stat-wise they're getting the job done so far. Co-pilot has Focus, which I like as it frees up my main pilot SP for other stuff.

Otherwise, the game has a lot of quality of life enhancements. For example, now I can buy skills on the same screen where I assign them to pilots. That alone with save tons of time.

I'm liking it so far. It's better than X, but still not anywhere near as good as V. I think V spoiled me rotten.
 
I gave in and got Seiko, Shadows Die Twice. I found the tutorial level rather annoying but now that I’m in the game proper I’m enjoying how viable stealthing is compared to the Souls games. Also encountered some cool NPCs and hidden areas already. Digging the heavy Japanese/Buddhist folklore setting as well.

Please tell us how it goes. I gave up on buying day one releases with Fallout 76 but this is a game that I have a strong interest in.
 
I finally passed the mission that was giving me so much trouble in Sleeping Dogs. Progressing steadily.
Why does so much of the game hinge on car chases is, however, beyond me.
 
I finally passed the mission that was giving me so much trouble in Sleeping Dogs. Progressing steadily.
Why does so much of the game hinge on car chases is, however, beyond me.
The driving mechanics in that game really could have used another pass. They weren't terrible, but they were frustrating for the level of importance they had in the game.
 
Getting the hang of Sekiro, arrived at the first big boss who fights you on horseback.

I still pretty much suck at fighting but have gotten that the key is to learn how to Deflect rather than dodge as in Dark Souls. I can handle the mooks but the Chained Ogre and other mini-bosses are still kicking my ass most of the time. I’m resistant to grinding but may need to do so.

This is a really beautiful game and I appreciate the ability to stealth sections and sequences where you can just use the grappling hook to navigate the terrain and enjoy the scenery.

The NPCs being more fulsomely detailed than in DS is also refreshing as is the strong Buddhist themes. I wonder if the Buddhism is actually going to manifest more significantly in the story though as we mow through our enemies.

 
Last edited:
Also playing the hell out of Enter the Gungeon which despite the adorable art style is a pretty damn hard bullethell roguelike. Got to the third level a few times.

This game is littered with loads of awesome D&D and other genre references btw. An update was even called Advanced Gungeons and Draguns. Highly recommended if you can handle the difficulty level.

 
Last edited:
Also playing the hell out of Enter the Dungeon which despite the adorable art style is a pretty damn hard bullethell roguelike. Got to the third level a few times.

This game is littered with loads of awesome D&D and other genre references btw. An update was even called Advanced Gungeons and Draguns. Highly recommended if you can handle the difficulty level.


What's more scarier than a Beholder? A Beholder with a gun! It's like the end of Wizards.
 
Getting the hang of Sekiro, arrived at the first big boss who fights you on horseback.
Funny enough, the name means pretty much the vocative form of "axe" in my language. So I don't yet know what the game is about, but I'm imagining a grizzled barbarian talking to his axe:grin:!
"You, Axe (Sekiro), have been my faitful companion. Ain't it time to give you a better name?"
"What's wrong with 'Sekiro', as you have been calling me all those years, and your father and grandfather before you?", the axe responds.
"Nothing, of course!", the barbarian shrugs and goes off to kill more enemies.


Yes, it does sound better in Bulgarian, of course:tongue:!

Also, that at least got me to google the game's reviews.
 
Funny enough, the name means pretty much the vocative form of "axe" in my language. So I don't yet know what the game is about, but I'm imagining a grizzled barbarian talking to his axe:grin:!
"You, Axe (Sekiro), have been my faitful companion. Ain't it time to give you a better name?"
"What's wrong with 'Sekiro', as you have been calling me all those years, and your father and grandfather before you?", the axe responds.
"Nothing, of course!", the barbarian shrugs and goes off to kill more enemies.


Yes, it does sound better in Bulgarian, of course:tongue:!

Also, that at least got me to google the game's reviews.

This made me look it up and Sekiro means ‘one-armed wolf.’ Which makes sense if you’ve played the game.
 
I've been playing Gunstar Heroes all weekend. I forgot how hard and awesome that game is.
 
Also been playing Sekiro. It's a very interesting game. I'm slowly getting a feel for it; definitely different from a Soulsborne, but you can tell is a From game. I'm getting a lot better at the guard and deflection mechanics, as well as the whole assassination style of engagement. I'm past the Chained Ogre, but not very. The more I play, the more I like it.
 
For Crusader Kings 2 players, there is this handy scenario generator, which comes up a with a play location to choose, restrictions to follow and goals to accomplish. It's good for when you are overwhelmed by the number of options.

Here are a few examples it spat out.

8171

8172

8173

8174
 
And I forgot to mention, the free Great Works update for Crusader Kings 2, came out today. It adds existing historical wonders to the map like the Great Lighthouse of Alexandria, Konark Sun Temple, and Petra, as well as allowing you to build your own, such as great monuments to your rulers or palaces with custom traits.
 
I got a full regular crew in Vermintide II finally... Such "Good" Times...

Edit: Hmm... I think I'll start recording our matches!
 
Last edited:
I hope that this will be half as fun as All-Stars Racing Transformed.


 
I have no idea why no one posted it yet, but the greatest franchise of all time is getting a new installment


and the previous installments are getting a remaster. That I am downloading right now. For free.

What a time to be alive.
 
Not that it is much of a secret, but it has been confirmed by one of the voice actors that a Horizon Zero Dawn 2 is in the works for the PlayStation 5. It probably won't come out until 2021.
 
There are rumors circulating that the PlayStation 5 console will be released in November 2020 for $500 with no optical disc drive and a 2 TB hard drive, selling at a $100 loss. Those same rumors state that the DualShock 5 controller will contain a built-in camera. I really hope that rumor about the DualShock 5 controller is wrong. I suppose that we will see.
 
Just finished Kathy Rain, a point and click set in a small American town in the 90s. It's about six-seven hours to play.

A bit Stephen King and I liked the protagonist (although I've read she's a well worn trope if you're American, "90s smartass biker chick") but I found the ending a bit silly and vague.

Essentially the game seems like it is building to some sort of supernatural event, but then evades any overt explanation by having it be a metaphor for addiction and not moving past your personal problems. My issue was the supernatural element has too intricate a mythology to just be a metaphor and is initially presented as a clear supernatural mystery
 
Holy shit. I'm playing City of Heroes again!!!!!!!!!

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
 
There are rumors circulating that the PlayStation 5 console will be released in November 2020 for $500 with no optical disc drive and a 2 TB hard drive, selling at a $100 loss. Those same rumors state that the DualShock 5 controller will contain a built-in camera. I really hope that rumor about the DualShock 5 controller is wrong. I suppose that we will see.

New console generation is in gestation? How quaint.

J/K :smile:
 
Holy shit. I'm playing City of Heroes again!!!!!!!!!

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I love city of heroes! Superleap is without a doubt the best power in any game end of story. I had a claw agility (whatever it was) scrapper called Stray Cat Strut that I just loved. She murdered in pvp
 
Holy shit. I'm playing City of Heroes again!!!!!!!!!

WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Anyone that follows me on MeWe can attest that I've been following the story intently the past week. I created an account on the new server, but I am leaning towards staying far, far away. Between the SCoRE fiasco the past week, and that one of the new server admins was caught boosting his or her buddies' toons to level 50 yesterday which will necessitate a character wipe next weekend, I'm wary to say the least.
 

Back in 2012, on the last day before the shutdown of City of Heroes, one of the Paragon Studios' employees secretly did a data dump of the CoH game server source code, the assets, and all of the databases (including the player characters database), and secretly gave it to one of the Titan Network's (CoH fan site) bigwigs.

That Titan Network big wig has been secretly running his own private City of Heroes game server since 2013 using the stolen server source code and databases. He even used the old player characters database. A couple of thousand people have been playing on it for years, but had to keep it a secret.

Two weekends ago, one of the few people that played on this secret server leaked it on both YouTube and Reddit. Then another person came forward leaking more information. Game journalists, particularly the ones on the Massively OP blog, have been covering it since. It's been nasty, extremely nasty, with a lot of infighting and rumor mongering. There's even supposedly screenshots and videos of people playing other people's characters on the secret server.

After a few days of drama, the leader of the private server decided to release everything except the player character database to the wild. Since then, he's been helping a group of people trying to get a server together, which has been (somewhat) operational since Friday night. It was up and down like a yo-yo until yesterday afternoon.

Anyway, they're doing a server reset next weekend because one of the new server admins secretly boosted his or her buddies' toons to level 50.

Yeah, it's a mess.
 
Last edited:
Well, that's interesting information. I played the hell out of it starting shortly after launch and stopped a few months before it closed for personal reasons. At last count I had over 100 characters, mainly on Freedom and Liberty.

The revisit was fun but I've moved on. Right now I'd need a solid group to play with to go back.
 
I played City of Heroes nearly daily from 2005 through the shutdown in November 2012, mostly on the Champion server. I had a lot of friends there from two different supergroups. We all co-mingled a lot so it was more like one supergroup than the two it was in formality. After City of Heroes shutdown, we tried to stick together and find a new MMO video game to call home, but some people hated game A and loved game B, while some loved game B and hated game A, and others hated games A and B but loved game C. After a couple of years of this, we all went our own separate ways, and I got back into tabletop games.

On a personal note, this past week has been hard. Everyone has come out of the woodwork and we tried to "get the band back together" over the weekend, but it turns out nearly everyone in the group now hates someone else in the group over mostly petty stuff that has happened over the past few years and refuse to play with each other. This person hates that person over this and refuses to play with him or her and that person hates someone else over something else and refuses to play with him or her. Danged kids. It really fouled the mood. And with the asshat clowns that appear to be running the new server, it's just more reason to stay away.
 
Well I'm having a big kick playing with my son and a couple of others. Thus far the SCORE team is insistent that they're not taking up any cash from users. And the rumor is NCSoft is talking with the SCORE crew.

The BEST thing NCSoft can do right now is the same thing Daybreak did with Project:1999 and Everquest - they need to embrace them and ratify them with a licensing agreement. 8000 players signed up and packed the server. At one point I'm pretty sure there was 2k players on. And it's growing.

Edit: I played CoH since alpha. My (now, ex) girlfriend was on the Cryptic team so I was in waaaaay early. My avatar is in fact is me (she used images and photos I took of us as assets for the game). My face is one of the models in the character creator LOL.
 
Last edited:
Well I'm having a big kick playing with my son and a couple of others. Thus far the SCORE team is insistent that they're not taking up any cash from users. And the rumor is NCSoft is talking with the SCORE crew.

The BEST thing NCSoft can do right now is the same thing Daybreak did with Project:1999 and Everquest - they need to embrace them and ratify them with a licensing agreement. 8000 players signed up and packed the server. At one point I'm pretty sure there was 2k players on. And it's growing.

Edit: I played CoH since alpha. My (now, ex) girlfriend was on the Cryptic team so I was in waaaaay early. My avatar is in fact is me (she used images and photos I took of us as assets for the game). My face is one of the models in the character creator LOL.

Yeah, word is NCSoft is willing to make these servers legal as long as all traces of the player characters database that was stolen and given to the Titan Network bigwig are deleted.

It's up to 14,000 registered players now. It's insane, in a good way.
 
Yeah, word is NCSoft is willing to make these servers legal as long as all traces of the player characters database that was stolen and given to the Titan Network bigwig are deleted.

It's up to 14,000 registered players now. It's insane, in a good way.

I'm hoping NCSoft does let it go on its merry way. It is a much beloved game and I know a lot of people with very fond memories.

Now, if only they can fix that fucking 'unique name" bullshit. :p
 
Anyone playing Sekiro? I enjoy it a lot, but have you ever been intimidated by a game that you enjoy? It's a toughie. There are three or four minibosses that I have tabled until I git gudder.
 
I still dabble in Overwatch even though it's broken as fuck and the balance is dreadful. Doesn't help that the ps4 playerbase are fucking awful.

I might buy the new MK even though I don't like the gimmicky fights with stupid modifiers. Or I might not.

TBH gaming has pretty much left me cold.
 
Well, it's over. NCSoft sent a cease & desist to the City of Heroes server owners. Server has been taken offline.
 
Voodoo GirlToday at 3:28 PM
@everyone We have some bad news, folks.

This server, as of right now, has to be shut down indefinitely. We are on a direct course for legal action. As such, steps must be taken in order to protect the people involved in this project, their families, and their futures. As with all of you, we are heartbroken. We wanted to see our City return, but to do so at the destruction of the lives of those involved is too great a risk to take.

However, this project is not finished. We will continue to work towards the revival of City of Heroes with all efforts that we can make. We cannot give you all a time frame at this time. We are in discussions to do what we can to revive some form of the server, however we do not wish to commit to a point in the future that we may not be able to reach. You have trusted us to this point. We ask you to extend that trust, and we will in turn do everything within our power to prove to you that we are deserving of it.

To everyone who has donated time, blood, sweat and tears, and logged in to prove that this game still wishes to live - we thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. This first step could not have been taken without you, and it is you, the most dedicated fanbase in the world, that will keep us moving forward.

Just remember we did the impossible this weekend.

We will see you all in Paragon City again. City of Heroes does not die today.

/em hold torch


AT WORK, DO NOT DMToday at 3:28 PM
As it stands, we are heading into legal fuckery. My hands are shaking as I type this up, so please bear with me.

The entire project is in jeopardy, but the only feasible solution we have is for me to set up an LLC and fight what is happening at this time.
I am risking everything for a community I love.
I am doing everything I can to defend those who were involved in this situation.
I am going to get fucked sideways over the next few months to years, and things are going to put me into some major legal turmoil.
I will have lawyers out the ass, and I will be put into personal jeopardy.

This is a project I am going to sink with, and I WILL do everything in my power to get done. I am praying for mercy right now.
I am extremely emotional right now and I feel the ten years I once decidated to this game is being ripped out from under me again.

I appeciate the support I've had from the community. I have to break the one promise I wanted with every fiber of my bewing to uphold, since I'm just a fucking semi truck driver. A fucking. Truck driver.

I am going down on this ship. This is my hill to fdie on. I will fight tootyh and nail to get EVERYTHING we fought for back.

I know its tough asking anonymous for support, but I'm in for a rough fucking right.
I have no way to make a closing statement, so I may as well go as fucking cheesy as I can.

Glory to Arachnos

Anyone not see this coming?
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top