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What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
Well I just picked up Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition but haven't had much time to play it yet. Hope to do a bit more with it this week, though it will have to happen before The Outer Worlds launches cause I'm definitely going to have to give it a try.
What I have been playing a bunch was Civ 6, been playing it a bit more while watching some shows. I still don't think I like Civ 6 as much as I liked Civ 5. While Civ 5 was a bit more casual I feel, easier to just pick up and play without much hassle or thought. Civ 6 requires a bit more thought, I feel like playing a good Civ 6 match requires you to put in a bit more thought and planning due to more features. Though with that, I still feel it is a game that does what I want it to, let me enjoy a turn based game while watching a tv show.
Civ VI has quite a different feel. I used to play Civ V when I wanted to have a laid-back, easy game. These usually didn't last more than a couple-hours game session (on the quickest game-pace setting). My first Civ VI game session lasted days on the same pace setting.
I picked up Cyber Sleuth 2 days ago and it's amazing. It's a mix of Pokemon, Classic JRPG, Persona and of course the nostalgia of Digimon. What I like about the game is that it doesn't cater to children but actually to the people that watched Digimon when they were a child and are now grown up. I've put in about 6 hours right now and I loved every second of it. Don't have a lot of time to play so I try to squize every hour I have out of it.
It's a fascinating for its production value (and maybe worth playing for that alone, I got some enjoyment out of that!) but it miserably fails at being a game. I've linked this a couple of times but here's a really in-depth article that perfectly summarizes what's wrong with the game. To me it's interesting because it is, to some extend, the story of where AAA gaming as a whole is heading to. It is a game that desperately wants to look like a movie and struggles miserably at any point where this collides with gameplay (or standards for screenwriting, for that matter).
Ian Bogost (who I generally like a lot) put a new article out yesterday that I think had an interesting concept along these lines. The article itself felt kind of scattered to me, so I didn't end up actually submitting it, but it might be worth a read anyway: Untitled Goose Game is fun. The problem is, all games are also work.
A fair amount of it talks about the conflict between the story/experience a game wants to get across and the fact that gameplay boils down to basically needing to do a bunch of tasks.
Interesting article. Honestly, what I get most out of it is how helpless we still are trying to write "seriously" about videogames. I can appreciate an attempt, though!
I love the story mode. But the Online is a bit too grindy for me. Everything is too expensive and it takes forever to make any money.
Are you saying that the gameplay itself isn't particularly good? I've heard this criticism in a few other places
Nothing wrong with you if you aren't enjoying a game so hyped. You're allowed to have preferences that don't align with the mainstream.
Any part of RDR2 that you liked?
I've started playing Disco Elysium with my partner. It's very bizarre and fun.
Sounds like you're doing alright!
The game is grounded in its own dream-like state: one minute, you're doing genuine detective work – interviewing locals about a crime, collecting and making sense of evidence, taking notes; next, you're talking to your tie. I love it. All kinds of skills can give you all kinds of serious insight. Makes you feel like a goddamn Sherlock Holmes if you have 'em high enough.
I finally got into dwarf fortress with the quick start guide, it wasn't as tough as everyone made it out to be. I've had a few interesting interactions like here where an angry carpenter beat the mayor's head in and won the election while standing over the body contemplating what she'd done.
http://0x0.st/z3o2.png
Thanks to a recent sale, I picked up all the Borderlands games/DLC I was missing! (...well, besides Tales From the Borderlands.)
Borderlands 1 was great, and holds up really well over time if not by comparison to the sequel. I mean, it doesn't feel dated, and I had a fun time playing it, but Borderlands 2 seems like almost strictly an improvement in most respects. (The platforming "scavenger" quests can go straight to hell, especially).
The DLC was also a blast (except the Underdome, which is boring and mostly pointless, especially without other players). It definitely felt like a transition from the pretty straightforward maguffin-based Borderlands and the more story-focused Borderlands 2.
I'm in the middle of Borderlands 2 now, by which I mean playthrough 1 with the DLC. I played it a bunch on the 360 years ago, and it was just as much fun returning to it, and now with even MORE that I didn't get around to the first time. I really like that it developed Pandora a bit, taking what was essentially a Mad Max-style quasi-post-apocalypse, and ramping up the cyberpunk elements. Great setting, fun to play in, and makes me want to run a tabletop RPG in something similar. :p
And so far, the DLC is a lot more successful, and that's just counting the fact that there's more fast travel! Plus it does even better to have colorful characters and tell a fun story.
The Pre-Sequel was... meh. I gave up on it. I mostly liked the storytelling (though it was thin in places), loved that your character actually mattered to the story telling and dialog, but the actual design of the game was so frustrating. I hated when Borderlands 1 would feature a quest that tried to make the game a platformer, and the low gravity is just built for that, and painfully slow. The maps also had a TON of one-way paths to annoy you. Lots of walls that look like doors and doors that look like walls, tiny mission objectives like switches you can easily miss and waste a bunch of time trying to find your way forward. Quests often had a bunch of busy work just to fill time (go to X and do Y, WHOOPS Z happened, now go over to A and do pointless and boring B). It didn't introduce any problems that weren't in BL1, but it suffered more from those problems. I might try again at some point, but after I've exhausted BL2 for a while.
The only thing I liked about The Pre-Sequel was that one of the characters had an aimbot as her action skill.
John Wick Hex. I think I'm midway through the story. Enjoying the gameplay immensely so far: if I don't mess about, it makes me feel like John Wick. Enjoying the sharp, simple design system and the creative handling of a challening gameplay proposition. It's not easy to make you feel powerful yet perfectly-vulnerable.
Was gonna try Disco Elysium – a game the RPG system behind which I'm infatuated with – but alas, even my parents' generally-okay PC can't handle it.
I'm surprised Disco Elysium would struggle to run, it's certainly stylised but doesn't seem at all graphically demanding! I'm assuming you've bumped especially the shader settings down?
Not the first time. No wonder it ran 10 FPS.
Turned everything down. Now it runs 26 FPS.
Finally found my Hearthstone replacement!
It's called Rogue Adventure and it's a take on Slay the Spire, but you always have 4 cards, and can't really go infinite thanks to each card costing 1 Mana, and you can only play one Gain X Mana card a turn. It also has tribes and gems that you can get from treasure chests and choosing not to add a card to your deck, and the gems let you pick up artifacts, where as your conventional cards is gold only.
It is free with ads, with an IAP to remove them ($5) and another to remove ads and unlock everything past and future. ($10) Due warning that the second one will also put you at Max level, so it's like an autobooster if you would rather progress naturally.
Also, I started Yoku's Island Express on Game Pass, a lot more relaxing than you would think from a pinball platformer.
I'm a crypto person and I've really enjoyed God's Unchained. Downside is that it requires a desktop but it is really fun.
I finally scratched my retro itch and played Myst and Half-Life.
I think I got further in Myst than on my last try and dare I say, I kinda get the story, now? I'm going with the oldschool 1993 version (or rather, some 1999 re-release? It's still very pre-rendered) instead of one of the real-time 3D remakes because I kinda want to feel that awkward presentation. It's so damn 90s, it's glorious. You get the Twin Peaks vibes, the weird high-contrast-but-low-res graphics, the odd balance of detail in the pre-rendered 3D (trees look like cylinders but some cylinders look like having 1 million polygons). The puzzles often make frustratingly little sense but there's a charm to how weird they are. I miss this kind of of early-90s point-and-click puzzling since it's not bound to any game mechanic, it's just a custom scene with some clicks and you have to deduct things from recognizing how certain objects would interact in the real world. I actually thought of this game when I saw it in a compatibility list of Scumm VM. It runs perfectly on macOS Mojave (I had Scumm VM installed but I think Steam actually uses it automatically?).
Also loaded up Half-Life. It's one of the few games where I truly get gaming nostalgia, like wow! Feeling myself sitting wide-eyed (partially because of the blinding glare of a CRT monitor) in front of the first ever PC I built unable to believe my luck in playing such a masterpiece. I dunno, I think it actually, genuinely holds up! Every weapon you get, every enemy you encounter and every bit of scenery it puts you in is a specific challenge. Which enemy to take on first, when to reload, where to take cover, which of the weird weapons to use, etc, etc. I also really enjoying the sound design (totally forgot how weird the music is!) and how unashamedly over-the-top the architecture is (also a bonus: Akira elevators!). It's this deep, suuuuper secret facility underground, "getting to the surface" is a great, unpretentious goal to have in front of you and the Black Mesa desert, with its bright colors and sun-dried surfaces is such a great contrast. It's just an interesting place to explore, so big, so secret, so quiet yet full of hints of amazing things happening behind the security doors. It's maybe still among my favorite videogame places. One tip: Disable the "high res models" in the settings. I don't think anyone can distinguish 1998 models from 2001 models, nowadays, and the original ones are much better designed.
I've also been busy on the Switch. Played some Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the first time in ages, getting my ass kicked mercilessly online and finally finishing the singleplayer campaign. Super Mario Maker keeps putting out mind-blowing levels, I don't know where people even still find new things to build but they do! I'm also getting pretty far in Baba Is You, which I neglected a bit, recently. I was stuck in this one section for ages but something clicked in my brain and I blasted through 10+ levels in a row. Amazing game.
I've been playing 7 Days to Die again after a long hiatus. They just pushed alpha18 into beta release (yes, I'm aware of how dumb that versioning is) and it fixed a lot of what I'd been frustrated about in a17.
I won't say that the game is done, but a18 is where it feels like it could be a finished product.
Ah, nice. I may have to check out the new version then. I have 250+ hours played over a few years and love the game, but the last major update completely broke the game for me. I could no longer level the way I like to by primarily focusing on crafting, since the spawn scaling made it way too difficult for me.
If you want to focus on the crafting game, you might also drop the difficulty and the max spawns somewhat, and if you're playing singleplayer, boost the XP gain so that you can cover more bases sooner. The zombie difficulty was changed a bit, and a stated difficulty level is going to be harder than you remember.
Ah, balls. I always play with friends on their servers, and AFAIK the default settings (other than map size) is typically what they go with... so unfortunately that's not something I can really tweak, and since they all like the combat a lot more than I do, I doubt they will want to lower either of those settings. :(
No worries. You may want to go with an Intelligence build, then. In addition to having many of the crafting skills, their weapons are a junk turret, which you can use as a gun or drop on the ground to defend you, and a stun baton, which does low damage but will hold a zombie in place. Between the two, you can lure zombies into your turret's range and hold them there without having to go toe-to-toe with them so much. When fighting in groups you're valuable without having to be on the front lines.
That actually sounds pretty interesting/fun, so I will definitely be giving that a try next time I play. Thanks!
Hell Let Loose is some of the most fun I've ever had in a tactical military shooter. 50v50 with proximity chat and squad chat, with gameplay that's very much in the same vein as Red Orchestra. Not as clunky and unforgiving as ARMA, but not as fast and fluid as CoD or Battlefield.
I had actually played the Darkest Hour mod for RO:1 for years, and this game feels like a spiritual successor to it. I can't recommend it enough if you want a semi-serious tactical team based shooter to sink your teeth into.
This video does a great job of showcasing the gameplay
I blasted through Control the other week and then had an itching to play The Witcher. I didn't get all the way through the DLCs for The Witcher 3, so I considered doing NG+ on my save since it's been a while. Instead I figured I'd give The Witcher 2 and I've been enjoying that. I'm also nearly finally done reading all the novels at this point...
Is this any good? I've been debating on whether to get it.
I really loved it! Cool premise, pretty neat story in my opinion, good visuals. And perhaps importantly for these days, relatively short with compelling but non-essential side content.
haven't been playing recently, but i did pirate /dead cells/ which is really fun. also found some /supergiantgames/ games, /pyre/ and /bastion/ which are pretty fun, but i just barely started both. couldn't find a copy of /transistor/ that would work inside wine, which i really wanted :\
i was playing /pokemmo/ a little while ago, but i kinda screwed myself over with my team build, and i don't feel like putting in the time to raise a few pokemon i need to continue.
i was going to start playing /league of legends/ for the first time because there's a good version for wine setup on lutris, but i only ran through the tutorial or w.e.
other than that, just /cs:go/ /dota2/ which i dropped both a few weeks ago. re-downloaded most of my steam library between steam/wine-steam but haven't touched it much. sometimes it's just fun to sit around and play with wine and try to get something to run
lutris is a blessing for windows games on linux
Transistor has a native Linux version though, so why play the Windows version?
my other comment got removed, which i didn't like, but i get it, so i'll say it a different way. i'm poor, i've been poor most of my life except when i was able to hold down a dev job (which was awesome, and fun, and exciting), but most of life is inaccessible to me, so i pirate stuff. i couldn't find a linux version to dl
Gotcha. And I understand why mods would remove anything that could be interpreted as encouraging piracy. I'm still surprised pirated Linux versions are so hard to find though. Good luck with your job hunt!
I'm not job hunting, I'm getting my shit rocked by cops using d.e.w.'s while dealing with ptsd, severe depression, and a lot more
what job hunting?
I'm about to end up permanently homeless or sui
Transistor is currently 75% off on Steam for the Halloween Sale (ends Nov 2)
i can't think of a reply to this that isn't catharsis, so i'll just not comment. thanks for trying to look out though, i appreciate the sentiment
I'm still gradually working through the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. I finished off Spyro 2 to 100% over the weekend, and have played through about the first 5 levels of Spyro 3 now.
Spyro 2 was quite good overall, and I think it had both some ups and downs compared to the first game. Some of the "orb quests" were interesting, but some were also quite frustrating and annoying. There was one in particular where you have to escort an alchemist through a bunch of enemies that I took a bunch of tries on, and then after I finished it, found out that the follow-up quest for a second orb required the head-bash move, which I didn't have yet. When I got the move later, I had to successfully re-do that annoying quest again to get access to the second part. The second boss fight (Gulp, I think?) was also pretty frustrating. I was worried about how bad the final boss fight would be, but it ended up being way easier than that one.
I thought that I had played the original versions of all three of these Spyro games, but now that I'm starting #3 I don't know if I did ever play this one. The "alternate character" sections where you play as... a kangaroo, or skateboarding-Spyro, etc. are kind of weird, and I'm not really sure how much I like them. I've also felt like I'm missing small numbers of gems more consistently now, and have ended up having to search back through entire levels for the 1-3 gems I missed a few times already. I don't know if they're placing the gems more oddly, or if the pickup function doesn't work as consistently as before, or what.
After not playing for a couple of weeks again, I've also gone back to Final Fantasy XIV some more. I've finally caught up to the point in the main scenario quests that my wife was at (which is still about 2 years behind), and am playing through the rest of the post-Stormblood (previous expansion) quests with her now. Soon we'll actually be able to start on the actual new expansion content, only... 4 months after it came out!
Like @Deimos, I also 100%ed Spyro 2 from the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. I said in an earlier comment that it's a good game to play but not a good game to 100%, and my playthrough confirmed that. I lost some of my love for the game trying to fully complete it because it required me to go through a lot of genuinely frustrating and un-fun parts.
I think my other issue with the game is that Spyro 1 had a lot of cleverly hidden areas, or areas that were teased to the player without the method to get there being immediately obvious. Being observant and thoughtful about the level's construction and your own abilities was what led you to secrets in Spyro 1, and I felt like this was mostly missing from Spyro 2. The second home-world in Spyro 2 had a potentially great example of this: a tantalizing island, far away from everything, loaded with treasure, with no clear way to glide to it. Unfortunately, rather than the path to get there being thoughtfully or creatively embedded within the level, I instead feel like it was just kind of cheaply hidden. The levels in Spyro 2 felt more functional to me (i.e. designed around the tasks they want you to complete within the level to get Talismans and orbs), whereas the levels in Spyro 1 felt more conceptual to me (i.e. designed as interesting layouts first that then got populated with the collectibles).
The other games I've tried out I posted rundowns of in the backlog thread so I won't repeat them here.
My plan for the upcoming week and a half is to try out some of the horror games that I've accumulated through various bundles and never end up playing. I don't usually love horror games, but the Halloween season always seems to give me a hankering for spooky stuff, so this will be my once-a-year dive into a less-favored genre.
I just purchased two games: Untitled Goose Game and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. Goose seems like a fun game to pick up and put down when bored and wanting to pass ten to twenty minutes. I like it so far, in a cheeky, clever kind of way.