Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of July 30th

Chloyster [she/her]@beehaw.orgmod to Gaming@beehaw.org – 78 points –

Whatcha all playing!

I've been going hard in Pikmin 4. Also been playing shattered pixel dungeon and recently ascended for the first time which was super fun.

93

After buying a Steam Deck during the sale, I'm playing Civilization 6 again. Never got into it nearly as much as the previous installments but now I think I'm finally getting it.

Just finished my first playthrough of Cyberpunk last night after about 120 hours. I had 3 or so gigs left but wanted to make sure I got it done before Baldur's Gate 3 (will need to free up some disk space...).

Overall I liked it a lot, despite its many flaws. It has some moments, characters and stories that are really engaging. Judy was a standout for me, and her voice actress really killed it. I regret not choosing Female V now, but of course I had no idea at the time. And I know it's controversial but I kinda liked Keanu as Silverhand, even though his voice acting isn't always "good". The relationship between V and Johnny was the thing I enjoyed the most, and Johnny's character development.

Not sure I'm super happy with the ending I got, though, and I might go back and play out some of the other alternatives.

From memory, I'm pretty sure Judy can only romance female V (if that's what your regret was).

I'm one of the weirdos who had a good time with Cyberpunk when it first came out. I'm really looking forward to the DLC and trying hard not to play it again before the DLC so I don't burn myself out on it.

Yeah, Judy made a big impression on me. I'll wait a while after Phantom Liberty's release until I'll play again, but I'll definitely play Fem V then so I can see the Judy romance.

I just played through another ending today, (Don't) Fear the Reaper into the Temperance ending, and I much preferred that to the one I got at first (Rogue's path into The Sun ending). I'm much more satisfied with the game now.

My first ending was Panam/Aldecaldo and it's still my favorite probably.

I have heard people like that one, and I have read roughly what it's about, but I'm saving that one for my next playthrough.

I think which one suits best depends a lot on both how you played your V and how you felt about Johnny.

For me, V and Johnny became like best friends, and so The Sun ended up feeling mostly like a letdown and a nobody wins scenario, and it felt almost out of character for V, too.

Temperance felt perfect for the story as I had experienced it, and it was also really cool to see the final dialogues inside Mikoshi from both the perspective of playing as Johnny and playing as V. Highly recommended.

SPOILERS When playing as Johnny (the first time), I actually thought V would interrupt a fourth time on the bridge heading towards the light and forcibly kick Johnny back into his body and make the choice for him. At least that's where it felt like the dialogues were going. I think that would have been a cool moment, if your relationship with Johnny is high enough.

Me and my spouse are getting back into Elden Ring. Created a new character and chosen a build that's enjoyable for both of us, so we sit on a couch, passing the controller back and forth, exploring, doing quests, reading lore and praising the Erdtree. Good Times!

what class have you chosen?

The wretch, of course! Gonna respec into a mad dervish poet, wielding bloodhound's fang and flames of frenzy once we clear the Academy.

Started the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, after wanting to replay the ME Trilogy for a couple years. Haven't played them since they originally released.

Just started ME3 yesterday, and it is nice to experience the gameplay changes from 1 to 3 in such a short time. I had completely forgotten how terrible that Mako in ME1 was. Made it almost unbearable for me. The Hammerhead in ME2 was so much better in every way.

I'm about quarter of the way through 2, really enjoying it.

Final Fantasy XVI. Much more gritty than the others. Just as much angst. Still, I’m enjoying it.

I'm waiting for this one to go on sale. Really enjoyed the demo but I'm in no rush to play it just yet.

Same. Really solid so far. Also glad to not play a giant open world after rdr2 and totk.

I just finished Tunic (not 100%, but got to the "right" ending). I managed solving all the endgame stuff myself, man it was hard resisting to just look things up, but it was really rewarding to figure it out!

Remnant 2 has been a blast. I do wish there was 1 more world in it to make it feel a little more full, but I love every moment of these games.

Its crazy to find a secret area in a secret area, pick up a melee weapon, then discover that the secret secret weapon unlocks a secret area with another hidden area inside it for a super secret ability.

Remnant 2 is so great! What an unexpected surprise treat of a game! It really scratches a lot of my gamer itches at once.

I agree that I wish it had one or two more worlds to explore but there is so much replayability already, it's easily worth the $50 price of admission. Looking forward the first big patch; hopefully they make respeccing significantly cheaper.

Honestly I wouldn't mind the traight cap if they would just let us do loadouts and pay a small fee in our inventory to swap them.

It feels stifling to need to run to Wallace to make any build changes in traight layout.

Basically my only complaint though. I want this team to keep making these style games. I've always been a big fan of randomized tiles or other forms of procedural generation.

It's incredible how they manage to still blend some of the best puzzles and lore into this system of world generation.

Played Dredge on the Steam Deck, which was a nice, relaxing experience.

Besides that I've been playing Blood: Fresh Supply on my beefy gaming pc. Great fun, much glee when blowing up hordes of cultists.

I've been busy as heck at work and kind of dipped out of TotK. I keep thinking about playing sekiro again, however

Yesterday finally bought Remnant: From the Ashes on sale after seeing the new one all over Twitch. Played 6h of coop with my brother and hell was it a lot of fun. There seem to be less and less good coop games, but this one does a good job. Of course there are many small issues though (e.g. a memory leak crashing the game every few hours on Xbox lol). Glad there is a second one already waiting after we're done.

Just got to 1000hrs on my new Steam account. I am just playing DayZSA, modded hardcore PVE mostly. Rarely, I go back to minecraft.

I am playing Jedi Survivor. Having had a blast with the original I was excited to hear people say that the second installment is similar but better in many ways. I don’t know what it is about it but I’m just not able to get into it. Maybe it’s the semi-open world feeling of some of the larger areas? I dunno it’s just not working for me, which is disappointing.

I'm waiting for the price to come down on it. I never finished the original because I suck at souls games but we need more good Star Wars games like these. I want to support both single-player Star Wars adventures and Respawn because they made my favorite shooters of all time (Titanfall and TF2).

I just finished the story this week. I don't know why it's not working for you - I liked how it feels, but have to admit the story didn't grip me as much as in the previous game. It looks like it's setting up an interesting character journey for Cal for the third game though.

I'd say, try not to get distracted with the open world - explore a little bit, but try to stick to the main story so you can finish it before you burn out on the open world (I learned this the hard way with Witcher 3 and AC: Valhalla).

I've been thinking of trying to 100% Survivor, but will probably give up on collecting all the things. Especially that there's an unfixed bug in the bounty hunters side quest that doesn't let you finish it.

I was offered a month of PC Game Pass for $1, so I took MS up on it. I've mostly been playing Forza Horizon 4(my computer can't handle 5) so far, the game's really fun.

I'm open to suggestions on games in the PC Game Pass library, btw. I plan to cancel before Aug 26th, so I want to get my gaming in before then. I honestly do prefer straightforward action games and RPGs(and strategy as well). Things I prefer to avoid are puzzle solving and super open world stuff. I generally strongly prefer single-player experiences, too.

Forza Horizon is just a sheer joy to play. 4 or 5, you can't go wrong. I'm not that into car games, but I have sunk hundreds of hours into both.

Don't know if you've played/heard of these, but some good short singleplayer stuff on gamepass that might fit the types of games you like and you could easily finish before then:

A Short Hike is getting added today and is something I'd recommend to anyone if you haven't played it. Very pleasant game, and as the name suggests it's very short, you can complete it in an afternoon.

Celeste is on there and is one of the best 2D platformers, if you enjoy those and haven't played it definitely try it out.

Death's Door is a top-down zelda-like, and one of my favorite takes by indies on that type of game.

Doom 1/2 are classics that are still very much worth playing and hold up well.

Mirror's Edge is a first person platforming/parkour game, a bit older at this point but holds up pretty well.

Monster Train is a deckbuilder roguelite, which I know is a polarizing genre, but if you're either into those or open to the idea of trying them it's one of the best. Might not fit as a shorter game depending on how much of the stuff in it you want to do, but you could at least get a good taste for it and see if you like it.

Both of the Ori games are good metroidvanias that are relatively short.

Prey is a great immersive sim/fps/stealth game, if you've tried other Arkane stuff like Dishonored, or the Deus Ex games, it's similar to those.

Both of the Psychonauts games are great 3D platformers. 2 is especially good and a big step up in gameplay, as you might expect with the time gap between them.

Tinykin is a 3D platformer with some Pikmin inspiration, where you're a tiny person exploring a giant house, very fun if you like platforming and collectathon type stuff.

Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. It finally came out on PC and it feels so good to have a R&C game again.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. Gotta clear those last quests before Baldurs Gate 3 release.

#JusticeForLagi

3U is still my favorite MH. Don’t care what anyone says about the underwater combat. I loved it.

Underwater combat is great and the game itself is good but the monster roster... Plesioth, Agnaktor, Uragaan, and the worst ones: Stygian Zinogre and Lucent Nargacuga. #JusticeForLagi though.

I'm deep into TOTK, though I'm looking forward to getting started with Don't Starve on my Deck.

Discovering Octopath traveller II. Not a big fan for now, It’s beautiful but I’m a bit disappointed by the story. Hope it gets better 🤞

Still grinding away at Street Fighter 6, and currently starting another run of the FFVII Remake!

Getting absolutely stuck into Remnant 2, such a cool sense of exploration!

Played Minecraft with a group of friends until 2am, life is good

XCOM 2: long war of the chosen (lwotc). Have heard about long war every now and again and finally decided to try it out. Gotta say it's pretty hard but I am starting to get the hang of it

Long war is practically another expansion. It's insane how much content there is for a mod

Is that a DLC? I have never heard of it.

Death loop! The game keeps warning me against direct fights, but the AI isn't great, so direct fights are the fastest way to clear anything

I hear ya, but you're missing major chunks of side quests and backstory that way. It's a fantastic story when you play it the way it's intended.

I think I've been doing the side quest. I just kill absolutely everyone on the map. And explore everything. Am I missing things that way? The way the stealth mechanic works I can basically sneak up past anybody as long as they're not looking directly at me no problems.

Ah okay, I thought you were killing the "bosses" without following the story prompts. Sounds like you are following the prompts so ignore me.

Finished what is available in Techtonica, so went back to Dyson Sphere Program for a bit to work on missing achievements. DSP is definitely my favourite of the Factory-Automation games at this point.

I still have a Factorio (Industrial Revolution 3) game going too, but am feeling DSP more at the moment right now.

Started playing InFAMOUS 2, i played the first one maybe 10 years ago and now just getting to the 2nd one lol.

What an amazing game it is!! It's a shame we don't have remakes of 1&2 on modern console or PC yet.

Yeah, they would do well with a remake. Gameplay is pretty solid, Hopefully Second Son and First Light hold up, those are next in the list

First Light is awesome front to back. Second Son drags slightly but has great characters.

Persona 4 mostly, I really like it although I'm tending to prefer P5 from what I've played so far.

Discovered Car Mechanic Simulator and it’s so so so satisfying. I know (knew?) absolutely nothing about the mechanical systems of cars, but it just clicks.

My initial reaction was to laugh, but honestly, after further thought, I could see myself getting hooked on a game of this nature.

I got sucked into playing Witcher 3 again. I swear I'll finish it this time! I've also been playing an early access indy game called Inkulinati, and when I need some mindless kick-ass action, I have my go-to TMNT: Shredder's Revenge.

I play Dragons Dogma DA for weeks now and I still love how fresh the combat feels everytime you change vocation. Right now I am a magic archer and I pretty much spend all the weight I can carry on blast arrows. This plus the skill where I can double zoom in on enemies from far away and do A TON of damage makes me the biggest danger in all of gransys at the moment. I can't stress this enough: the combat in this game is just so good and varied it's absolutely insane!

But!

I just can't stop thinking about how great it would be if Dragon's Dogma had lore and quests like the third Witcher! I feel like Capcom tried with a handful of quests like the one with the dude from the village who constantly gets lost and you have to rescue him. Or some main storyline quests also can be exciting. And yet, most quests are kill quests with just a little textbox explaining who wants what killed.

Dragons Dogma made me realize how much of Witcher 3 is actually carried by the writing, the lore, the world and the interesting characters interacting in it and how bland, almost bad the combat is.

So now I wish CD Red would hire the people responsible for the combat in Dragons Dogma for the next Witcher! Sounds like a perfect game in my book!

Playing Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on the PC. Bought it on a whim and it's quite a good game with gorgeous graphics. Lacking polish in some areas though, for example there are many oddly placed invisible walls as well as points where the character can get stuck. Anyway, trying to finish the game before Baldur's Gate 3 comes out.

Still Final Fantasy 14, I'm near the end of the Stormblood base story (some general spoilers in the comment).

This expansion has been a massive disappointment so far, and this time it's not even about all the time-wasting (of which there's still plenty). It's about a war to end the occupation of two different regions / nations, but it's just not executed well at all.

The scale of the fights, that are supposed to drive out the invaders, have like a dozen people on either side, so they are just really lame. The villains are not compelling at all and have a really dumb reason for fighting you. Some of your companions, that should play a bigger role, basically don't matter at all. It's just not interesting at all.

I can't wait for this to be over, hopefully the post-game patch content can improve things somewhat. I should at least get a bunch of dungeon unlocks, probably a raid, maybe more, which will most likely be a good time.

As for jobs I've played this week, at the start all Summoner, to get it to 80, afterward I switched to Dancer. Both are really fun and I liked them. I want to check out Red Mage a bit more, and have done some duties with it, but I need more practice with it. I leveled Dark Knight to ~50, but I'm just not really that much into playing tanks. I'll do some duties here and there, but not much more for now. Same with healer, which I'm leveling a White Mage a bit, for now slowly trying to get it to 50.

I'm playing Team Fortress 2. It's my comfort game.

Hades. I bought it a few months ago and finally installed it yesterday. Only played about 30 minutes, but love it so far. I didn't even know it was a roguelike -- I thought it was more like Diablo from the screenshots. I just bought it because everyone said it was amazing, and I think I'm going to agree with them.

Nice, enjoy it. Remember to chat to all the characters every time you can - the writing is as important a part of it as the hacking and slashing.

I've started Elder Scrolls Online again after a long break and do the dailies there every evening with all my characters.

I've just finished FF XVI, and while it's certainly not a perfect game, I really had a fantastic time with it.

Now onto either of Soul Blazer, Parasite Eve or Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, I've yet to decide which to start with.

FFVIIR and enjoying it. I’m getting the hang of the hybrid battle system, it’s a good balance of the two, curious about other titles that mix action and almost turn based style commands. Still a little annoyed at the camera and target locking, but have gotten used to it after switching to d-pad targeting.

Also just escaped fort joy in Divinity Original Sin 2. Such a great game.

Still playing Diablo IV (just hit level 72) and Puzzle Quest 3 (because functional addiction, which probably applies to Diablo IV as well).

Oh, and Cookie Clicker -- 459 days and counting.

I saw Timberborn getting shilled a bit on here so I've been checking that out. Lots of fun so far. The droughts keep absolutely wrecking me, though.

I've been playing a couple of neat games.

Time Bandit is a really unique mix of genres focused on real time-based interactions. There's puzzles you solve that take hours and you have to leave machines running and check back later, people you meet at certain times, stores that have different schedules. It's a dystopian setting where you work in a factory, and there's this guy you meet early on who's with a rebellion group that teaches you about communism. It's really neat, and less of a time commitment than it might sound like, most of my sessions have been like 10 minutes just checking in on stuff, sort of like a very weird animal crossing. It's pretty cheap and getting a criminally low amount of attention for how cool it is.

The Void Rains Upon Her Heart is a roguelite boss rush shmup. Really approachable for that genre. I got interested in it because the dev got hired by the Revita team (one of my favorite games from last year) to work on the expansion for that, and it definitely has some similarities to that, also kinda reminds me of Undertale combat. It's got a ton of content and does a great job at pacing the unlocks and stuff.

Last, Pseudoregalia is a 3D movement focused metroidvania. It's very N64 inspired in style. You're exploring a big castle, with a lot of platforming and interesting movement abilities. There's no map, so it definitely requires some patience with that, but it's a really neat game overall. Seems to allow a lot of sequence breaking. It's looking to be fairly short as well, which is nice.

Slay the Spire, Mini Metro

Deep Rock Galactic

Beat Saber

Factorio (space exploration) coop

Looking back at this list, I gotta say that it's a pretty diverse selection.

Ar Tonelico (the 1st one on ps2).

I've played this when I was a younger but never finished. Was bored and picked it up.

It's still a fun jrpg, the song magic amd reyvatail mechanics are a neat twist to the basic turn-based action.

And "Diving"/dating sim mechanic of the game is a fun way to add some social aspect (besides the story).

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, a game that hooks a lot.

I've got a brand new intel nuc 12th gen i7, 4070 graphics, 32 gig ram, Samsung 990 hard drive.

Cost me a pretty penny, and a lot of time to put together. Not to mention all the time spent researching parts and agonising over choices. Then the wait times for deliveries and redeliveris of the orders I messed up (had to return ram twice, once because I accidentally ordered the wrong ones, and once became a stock was faulty).

Eventually have everything set up.

So of course I'm using it to play ksp1.

Still deep in Tears of the Kingdom, but I am close to 100% of shrines and light roots. Have not even tried fighting Ganon yet, but with my power level it shouldn't be that tough. Gonna finish it this week and then hop back to Final Fantasy 16, which I binge played release weekend and got over 50% through according to the PS5 progress indicator.

I just finished Tears of the Kingdom last week. No spoilers, the final boss fight felt like a dragon ball Z episode. The health bar busting out of its usual bounds and hitting the edge of the screen was a "shit just got real" moment for me and the kids, lots of hype. I didn't think I would see anything top Breath of the Wild in this generation but glad to be wrong.

Snowrunmer. Something about dragging big trucks through mud is just very relaxing and satisfying.

Same! Had mudrunner on steam then snowrunner on epic, just got snowrunner on steam with all the dlcs on sale, and really enjoying the laid-back vibes.

I just finished replaying the Arkham games. Thinking about not moving to the Uncharted series since I’ve only ever played the first game, a tiny bit of the second, and half of the fourth. Want to experience the series / story in full.

I've been mostly playing Risk of Rain 2, but over the weekend I finally beat it after about 30 hours lol. I honestly didn't even try to beat it, I was just having fun killing a bunch of things. I think it's one of the only games where I don't feel bad losing a 1hr+ run

After finishing this game, I think I might have the confidence to go back and try to finish Enter the Gungeon. This time I might just look up a guide on how to finish it since I've been strictly trying to beat games without outside influence in recent years and I have no idea about anything outside of what I have discovered in the 15+ hours of gameplay I have so far

I just bought Sun Haven to play with my girlfriend. I'm enjoying it so far, we kinda lost track of time playing lol. Though it seems like whatever job the host has, the players that join will have that job too which kinda sucks. Maybe I messed something up though. It doesn't seem to matter much because you can kinda just ignore your job and do other things.

Satisfactory. Been progressing my last save for a few weeks. I'm in the last (but largest) phase. My factory took a lot longer before turning into spaghetti comparred to my previous attempts. Now it's slowly getting complex to the point of considering going mass dissassembly and make something more pretty.

The House of Da Vinci. I got it in the Steam summer sale and needed something like The Room games. I had no idea it was so much like The Room games. I'm glad I bought it with a huge discount. It's not worth the full price, which is the only difference I see between The House of Da Vinci and The Room. The Room is definitely worth full price on Steam and a huge value if you get it on sale. Anyway, I'm happy. I get more of The Room, but it's in The House of Da Vinci. Great puzzle game to play clicking on stuff with your mouse and feeling relaxed.

Ohh nice I played that one. I agree it's not nearly as good as the room in my opinion. Idk why exactly, but it just seemed less polished. Still worth it on discount imo though

The "less polished" feel, I think, comes from the way sometimes the double-click doesn't focus right depending on the angle you're looking at objects from and also the way sliding objects don't slide the way they're supposed to. The sliding objects get wicked fiddly, sometimes. The camera isn't as good as in The Room, either. The Room had all of these aspects perfectly polished, it was just easy and intuitive to interact with. The House of Da Vinci, lacking this perfection, pales in comparison. The regular price now is 19.99. It used to be twice that. I got it for 7.99. Having payed 7.99, I'm OK with the major wonky. If I had payed 19.99, I would be very unhappy. If I had payed 39.99 I would be very seriously pissed off. I have to say, though, too, that I like the addition to the looking glass, where it lets you see things in the past. I really think it adds a little more depth to the puzzle solving. Plus, you get a Renaissance bionic arm thingy. Kinda cool. This game is keeping happy. In a place where I need more of The Room and I finished all of The Room. 8 bucks well spent and I'm happy.

Nice! Yeah I didn't even consider the PC price. I played all these games on my phone and I think I got house of davinci for like 99c on sale, so I think that wasn't a bad price at all haha. I would not be super happy about paying full price yikes.

I can't imagine playing this game on a phone. I guess 99 cents isn't so bad. Do you still have eyes after playing this game on a phone? LOL. I wonder if the phone version and the PC version are different. Like, on a 17" screen, I've had to adjust brightness to see things and then re-adjust brightness to see other things. LMAO. I could play this on a tablet, though. Totally could see things on there. With brightness adjustments available on the fly. I can totally imagine The Room being accessible perfectly on any device. That's the "polished" you couldn't quite put your finger on. The Room was carefully created for all devices. The House of Da Vinci is a blue light special.

Haha I do indeed still have eyes :)

Idk I didn't think it was too bad. I don't remember the screen size ever really being an issue but it's been a while since I played

Referring back to The Room, I had choices. I could play it on my iPhone, my iPad, or on my gaming laptop with Steam. I went with my gaming laptop on Steam. Again, I bought all of those in a sale. I was bummed because I was like, "I could have lolled around on the couch with my iPad and played this no prob instead of being weighed down with my heavy gaming laptop on my lap. Even the last installment, with the complicated creepy doll house shit and all the travel through the house and all." The first The Room I saw as totally potentially cool on my phone, and maybe even The Room 2. After that, I don't know. Maybe. The House of Da Vinci, as I am playing it on my computer, it really needs the screen real estate because of the camera and the wonky nonesense. I can tell that the developers originally made it for a computer because of the way you have to manipulate things. The Room is a format I can imagine on a touchscreen. The House of Da Vinci is not something I can imagine on a touchscreen. But you are living proof you can do this, on a phone. So there is something else to say about this game. It's great on a phone. 99 cents is nice. It's less than 7.99.

Yeah I totally get what you mean. Have you had a chance to play the VR room game? I really want to check it out but don't currently have a headset

I have not, because I don't have a VR headset, either. VR technology is something really interesting, though, isn't it? Right now, what I'm seeing, is a lot of few people owning VR headsets whining about how they wish old games could be VR-enabled and adjusted to be made VR. My best guess is that some console maker will make VR an integrated part of its technology (probably Nintendo) and everybody will get their VR on until they're exhausted (like with the Wii) and then, after that, we'll have VR that is affordable to the masses (not like what happened to the Wii, which my great-nephew used to call the "wee-wee" when he was 4).

Yeah I think VR is cool. I don't think it'll take off until they can make a headset that's actually comfortable to wear for a long time though. I've tried a bunch out, and some aren't that bad. But for prolonged periods it's just uncomfortable usually. And it makes me not want to set it up again when I know I'll just get sweaty and irritated after an hour

Just finished Yakuza 3, started Yakuza 4. Enjoying the visual bump, and some refreshing changes to the combat, though I loved the story of Y3. Also playing through BotW for the first time (very late to the party).

Trying not to get sucked in too deep by my return to OSRS on top.