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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.
Playing Red Dead Redemption 2, finally. It's good stuff. The keyboard control choices are questionable, but aside from that I'm enjoying the game.
I do have a few quibbles around the morality system, but it's more eye-rolling than infuriating, and has minimal effect on the gameplay.
It seems like the slow pace of most of the gameplay is divisive, but I really like it. It makes these places and actions feel more grounded in the world. As compared to C2077, this world feels real down in its bones.
Noita
This is a roguelike game where you are a wizard who ventures into a procedurally generated dungeon with the aim of surviving, finding better wands with ideal stats and spells, and finding potions. It is incredibly addictive, and gives me that feeling in Terraria of exploring caves and mines, without all the mining. You start off with two wands each run, one for general shooting and another that contains explosives. You are also given a potion that may be water or something that provides a buff/debuff.
As you progress through the mines/dungeons, you can interact with the environment. Explosives will punch holes in the earth and through wood, allowing you to access hidden parts of the level that contains a wand, potion, or power-up. Explosives also set wood on fire, as well as pools of oil. This adds to the trickiness of the game, as enemies drop gold nuggets that fade after a few seconds. You often have to make choices of whether you want to risk getting set on fire from burning wood or oil and getting gold from defeated enemies, or progressing further down into the mines.
The game is split into levels, where you progress by getting to the bottom of the level and going through a portal. You are then teleported to a place that is safe 90% of the time where you can heal, purchase wands or spells, edit your wand loadouts, and get a perk.
With all that said, the game is amazing. I have left it running pretty much non-stop over the past three days, but I have invested at least 12+ hours over a three day period. I love destroying the environment. I love setting traps. I love finding cool wands and figuring out ways to utilize potions with my run. There are often times where I am playing and pull off some cool explosions that net me 100+ gold.
But the game also makes me mutter things like,
"But I was having fun :("
"Why didn't I just leave to the next level?"
"What the FUCK was that?"
It's a great game, and well worth the $15 sale price right now.
Hollowknight pulled me in. As someone that hasn't really been able to really get into a game since I was younger, it was great. On the plus side, it has an ending so even if you get hooked, you won't be hooked for too long.
Just got Disco Elysium and I've already sunk about 8 hours into it. It's quite good: the gameplay superficially consists of having conversations and discovering things to pick up or do, but that doesn't do it justice. The story is good (so far), but the writing itself is fantastic—it has to be, because you're reading a lot of text. Think of a grittier (but still quite funny) Grim Fandango. There's a "Final Cut" update coming in March but I don't regret buying it now because I see myself replaying this at least once—you can tell even in your first playthrough how nonlinear and branching the story is, and you really get to decide what kind of detective you want to be.
I finished Cyberpunk 2077. It has a fairly emotional ending. Took me about 50 hours in-game, doing most of the major quests and a ton of gigs.
I spent a couple days in a post-game depression hole. After finishing it, I immediately did what I always do and looked up how many other endings there are. I found there's a secret ending and I thought I had done what it takes to get it. I just needed to make a couple different choices in the last hours. So I tried that and it didn't work. I didn't make many manual saves, but I still had one that would allow me to do what it takes to open up the secret ending. It'd mean losing about 10 hours of gigs and other side quest progress.
I put it down and fired up Deux Ex: Mankind Divided. This is probably the closest mechanical equivalent of Cyberpunk. I got reminded that this game has all sorts of performance issues on PC. I still can't run it at 4K resolution, "ultra" settings, and that's pretty surprising for a four year old game. I dialed everything back to make it run smoothly and got to work on a lethal playthrough. I'm dying constantly. I can't melee two enemies in short order without eating battery juice. I'm early in the game, so I can't hack anything remotely yet. I really enjoyed this game the first time I played it, but it's got a real rough start.
Last night, I fired up that 40 hour Cyberpunk save. I'm going to get that secret ending. By the time I wrap that up, it should be Friday. I'll have a pile of Humble Choice games to play, and then I can take advantage of holiday sales to get something new.
I also thought I had accidentally stumbled into the correct choices for the secret ending, but when I tried to do it, it never triggered. I read one guide that said it was (minor spoiler) getting your Johnny rating to exactly 70%. While there are some very specific choices you need to make on the Chippin' In side quest to make this happen, apparently picking them (as I did) isn't enough. Your general interactions with Johnny have to have been positive, but not kiss ass up to that point. Sounds like a very tough needle to thread in a game that took me about 85 hours to beat.
I'll probably wait for a director's cut or something before I try to thread the needle on the secret ending.
Interesting. Yeah, I guess people still have to figure out exactly what the requirements are.
I think it's fine to have certain endings hidden, but in a game this complicate that requires so many hours, that having to thread such a tight needle across so many quests to get it is a little nuts. Especially since, as you point out, it's considered the "best" ending.
Though I did like the nomad ending well enough anyway. But I'm pretty discouraged about having to do so much all over again (the only save I have from before Chippin' in is like thirty hours ago) to get anything else. So, I'm in no rush to play again. I have plenty of other stuff to get in too.
AFAIK the "secret ending" is definitely not the "best" one. And given how ridiculously difficult and unrealistic it is, I very much doubt it would be the canonical ending either. It's basically just an easter egg for masochists, and in fact, as far as I understand, it's actually not even unique at all in terms of its outcomes for you or Johnny. If you manage to actually trigger and pass it, it basically just leads to the exact same ending choices as those that occur in the Rogue ending, with the only difference being the fate of one of the related NPCs who doesn't even really matter in the grand scheme of things. Supposedly the only real difference between it and the Rogue ending is that it has a unique final mission that is much more difficult due to it having way more enemies and unavoidable combat in it, and once you start it the game immediately switches into ironman mode where you can no longer save, and if you die at any point afterwards you immediately go to the end credits.
And as for "good/bad/best" endings, over my 3 playthroughs I have managed to get every ending but the secret one (which I am not even going to bother with, BTW), and IMO none of them are really "good/bad/best"; Some are extremely dark, and others are slightly more positive/hopeful, but they are all interesting in their own unique ways, and are all worth experiencing.
I suppose I understand your frustration a bit, but if I'm being honest here, IMO you basically did this damage to yourself by looking up the secret ending and how to unlock it in the first place, working to achieve that, and buying into other people's hype about it. I very much doubt the "secret ending" was really meant to be something most people ever see, since it's by far the dumbest and most outlandishly unrealistic of all of them; Soloing Arasaka tower... really? As such, it's probably nothing more than an Easter egg, not a legit ending, and not ever intended to be one... so calling it "unfinished" is a bit silly.
IMO you would have been far better off just playing naturally, and getting the ending you got based on the choices you naturally made while immersed in the game, since all the other "normal" endings were much more satisfying anyways.
I'm playing Stardew Valley. My first save was broken to hell, with bugs that caused me to lose my pan, and I think something else, plus I used the wallpaper cheat to get a Galaxy Sword without putting in the word, then ultimately deleted it. I decided with the 1.5 update being so huge, I'd turn on the new one-year run feature, and see how quickly I can do it. I don't think I'll make it, but if I finish in Year 2, I'll be happy. I'm already approaching level 60 on the mine, and find buying upgraded weapons every level, if you can afford it, is worth doing.
I'm still working through the THPS series, but with less gusto on Underground. I don't like how it has two walk/caveman buttons, but no spine transfer button and I don't know of a way to hack it in somehow. Playing 4, THUG:PRO (Underground 2 with a bunch of mods) some American Wasteland, and 1+2 around it, Underground just feels awkward, with more bails.
That 1.5 update for Stardew looks really fun. I'm playing on Switch, so hoping we get it pretty soon. I'm gobsmacked every time I think that just 1 dev made that whole experience alone. Makes me want to move out to the country every time.
I've been playing Cyberpunk 2077 for the last few weeks - I can probably finish the main story in a couple of hours, but right now I'm just running around the map seeing if there are any side quests left that are still interesting and not just simple fetch/kill/rescue open-world filler.
Playing it on a PS4 Pro has been an... interesting experience. I love the characters, the soundtrack and the lore behind the world, but of course the game crashes every hour or so, and some of the bugs are immersion-breaking. I'm glad I bought it though - I rarely finish games, but this one I'm actually interested in completing, if only for the story aspect of it.
Been playing Wakfu. I'll be honest, it's not super great, but something about it makes me come back to it every once and a while. I think what I like about it is that it's a turn-based tactics MMO and that's something that's hard to find. Plus I think the art is cute in places and I liked the TV show! Another good thing about it is that every class feels radically different. My favourite so far is the Pandawa, which is a class whose signature skills are chucking people around the battlemap and using a barrel of sake in various ways for damage, healing, and support.
Dofus, a similar game by the same studio, is generally regarded as better but I haven't touched it in even longer! It's also a team-based tactics MMO, but in this case I don't know anyone else who plays it, whereas I'm in a guild on Wakfu.
EDIT: Oh, and I recently went through the game "We Were Here" with one of my brothers. It's a puzzle game with asymmetrical roles, and I've been really into asymmetric multiplayer games for a while. This one was quite good, although short, and it was also free! I recommend giving it a try.
My husband and I played through We Were Here a while back and really enjoyed it! I snagged the two sequels in the Steam sale for us, and we plan on going through them soon.
Celeste
I have replayed Celeste three times in the past month. This time, I'm going for all jewels and strawberries in the main game, before attempting post-game content for the first time. I have enjoyed replaying the game more than I did my original playthrough, and part of the reason I have returned for re-replays is that now that my skills are sharpened, the game's challenging-yet-attainable aerial acrobatic feats are much more fluid and satisfying to complete. I don't play a lot of games for the joy of mastery, but Celeste feels amazing to play once the controls and game's mechanics are familiar under your fingers. Also, the final chapter in the main game is nothing short of magical.
Verlet Swing
You know when you get that deep-seated and unshakeable hankering down in the depths of your bones that won't go away until you've played a grappling hook game? No? Just me, then? Well, Verlet Swing is the perfect way to scratch that itch. The "feel" of grappling hook games is hard to get right, and this one gets it right. I'm not sure exactly what makes it work, only that the game's movement is a joy.
Borderlands 3
Finished the main game and first DLC with my husband. It's Borderlands -- we know exactly what we're getting and are enjoying the mindless, shooty romp through ascending numbers. The story and plotline is probably the worst in the series, but the gunplay is probably the best.
In fact I do! Have you played A Story About My Uncle? My nephew turned me on to it, oddly enough! It's a pretty fun grappling hook game.
Thanks for pointing out Verlet Swing! I've downloaded it and will give it a try this week!
Another recent one that looks really good is Cyber Hook. It's currently 75% off on Nuuvem, and that might be a pricing mistake since it's only 30% off on Steam and has never been below 50% off anywhere else.
@kfwyre
Looks interesting! Thanks!
Hello kindred spirit!
I thoroughly enjoyed A Story About My Uncle, and it is all sorts of perfect and heartwarming that your nephew recommended it to you. :)
Verlet Swing is very different -- a much more "pure" grappling hook game without the narrative and powers of A Story About My Uncle. Furthermore, Uncle's grappling is more linear and point-to-point, whereas Verlet's is more about continuing momentum through strategic swinging. You can't land on surfaces in Verlet, so each level is about maintaining a continuous line through to the finish. They're both great in their own ways though, and I like them both for different reasons.
On the subject of grappling hook games, if you liked A Story About My Uncle, you might also like The Free Ones. It's not as good or polished as Uncle, but the gameplay style and mechanics are almost a carbon copy.
Yeah, I downloaded it and tried it out. It's very difficult! There's also something I'm clearly missing. I see that others can clear a level in like 3 seconds, when I'm taking like 15 seconds, and can't see any way you could even move that fast! This will be a good challenge!
The Steam Christmas/Winter sale had quite a few titles from my wishlist on them, so I grabbed a bunch. Among them:
Total War: Attila: This seems like a good game, but, unfortunately, it is unstable. Most of the time, the UI freezes up after a battle. I'm pretty close to just waving the white flag and calling this unplayable, and accepting the lost money.
Battlefield V: I have hundreds of hours sunk into this on the PS4 platform, but managed to pick it up for PC on a decent sale (50% off I think?). It was a so-called "Definitive Edition", which seems to have unlocked all guns for me up front, which is nice. I still have to level them up, but least I can pick all my favourites right away instead of grinding. I already have a lot of map familiarity from my time with the game on PS4, so most my time is spent levelling up the guns and training with keyboard+mouse. It's pretty stable on Linux, and, best of all, whatever anti-cheat system they're using does not have a problem with Linux at all. Overall, with about 13 hours clocked, it's only crashed maybe 2 or 3 times. That's probably unacceptable to some people, but I don't play this competitively, so I'm okay if I have to restart the game once 2 days or whatever.
After playing yet another semi-boring game of Civilization 6, I thought I'd give another strategy game a try. Crusader Kings II is free and well-regarded, so I thought I would try that.
And I really don't get the UI. Even the tutorial is tough to get through because I have trouble finding stuff.
It's kind of neat (although also horrifying) that you can arrange marriages, but rather difficult to know what to do with all the stats. Not to mention that most people are from places I never heard of and it's not that easy to look up the place where they're from.
Also, at one point it told me I don't have enough ships but figuring out how many I needed was tough, as was figuring out how to merge fleets. At one point I thought I couldn't merge a mercenary fleet with a different one, but it turns out that a fleet in an ocean is different from a fleet in port.
I like the concept, but this gives me a lot more appreciation for the design of Civ 6. Or maybe it's just what you're used to?
Civ 6 definitely has a different design philosophy, in that there's a lot of streamlining of the experience so you're making fewer overall decisions. CK2 and 3 both ask you to manage things in a lot more detail, and so the UI stretches to try to help you manage a much more complex endeavor. It succeeds in some ways and fails in other, but it's really down just learning it all.