The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!
Please don’t forget to use the spoiler tag as soon as you start talking about a storyline.
Baldur's Gate 3. I had never played any of the series but the reviews were good so I took a chance. It probably is the closest we'll get to an actual dnd experience in a single player game (well, except for scheduling conflicts lol). I have thoroughly enjoyed it so far and am trying to not let it take over my life
I picked up Baldur’s Gate 1+2 remastered as a combo on a Steam summer sale for like $20 last year, and I gotta say BG2’s story was a real high. Probably one of the best I’ve experienced in video games.
You really have to micromanage the combat though, so if you don’t like pausing and thinking about every single move your party needs to make, it might not be for you. I also played it before BG3, so I can’t really speak to how it’ll feel going backwards. But BG2 was really worth it for me.
I think a lot of those CRPGs were built under the premise that your companions were meant to die as expendable fodder for the player character. I know old school Fallout was built like that. It's a real challenge keeping everyone alive till the end of 1 and 2.
I actually played Fallout 2 over the pandemic lockdowns, and I gotta say I found BG2 less difficult. I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much time dying in a game as I did in FO2.
It's been years since I've played it... but IMO going backwards would be rough.
The toughest part for me is that the game is based on 2e, an edition of DnD I had no experience with. It was rough lol
Ooof, even Order of the Stick is based on 3.5e. The only thing i know about 1st, 2nd, and 4th editions is what Matt Coleville has talked about in his running the game series (minions and the bloodied condition ftw btw)
I finished the game once, have 2 co-op games running with friends, and just started a modded playthrough where the whole party is Artificers. I highly recommend giving some of the mods a try once you’ve played through vanilla. They’re super easy to install and add so much fun an variety.
Ngl, i used mods in Morrowind back in the day, and tried them with Skyrim, but today there is such a glut of quality games that i have a backlog of things i still want to play but haven't had time for yet. I get 1-2hrs each night that i can use to play games. At this rate i won't be playing Skyrim in Space™ until June next year, and i still want to go back and do a new playthrough with the Phantom Liberty dlc. That's just the AAA games, there's several from smaller studios on my list. Plus I GM a SW5e campaign every winter with some friends... man I'd love to quit my job so that I could game.
First world problems, amiright?
Mass Effect trilogy for the first time. So many people have been trying to put me on it for years, finally giving it a go. Heard really good stuff about it
Are you playing the Legendary editions? The first one definitely didn't age super well, even on LE. the mako sections are not great, the combat is decent with the LE changes, and random planet exploration is not very good either.
but the story, character stuff, and the lore of the world are very good, and it's a great kickstart to the universe and your investment in the rest of the trilogy, 2 is SIGNIFICANTLY better than the first and by the third you're really invested and the gameplay has made great strides. It's a little tough to get into, but it does really snowball into something incredible.
Also, in the first one, there is a point of no return that the game doesn't warn you about explicitly, I missed out on doing DLC or character specific side quests because I went too far and couldn't return, be careful.
Legendary edition. Only a couple hours in the first one and enjoying the story so far. Thanks for the heads up though - I'm trying to avoid looking at any guides and wanting to experience on my own but should I look when specifically in the game there is a part of no return?
At a certain point you'll need to go to a planet named Ilos. Do what you want to do before you go there and you'll be good.
Cities Skylines II :)
I am so excited to get started on this. But I saw it is not well optimized :(
Yeah. I don't have performance issues but the game feels empty without mods. It's kind of hard to explain. There are only a few trees for decoration for example. Houses are half floating or do not connect to the road when there is a small hill. But I have confidence that they will sort it out.
That being said. Games that are not ready for release should not be released, period.
How does it compare to the first one? I've played it for a while but I could not really get hooked on it
If you did not enjoy the first one I doubt you enjoy the second one. Tldr: its more in depth than the first one.
Awesome thanks! I actually played with out mods for CS1. But I have GamePass until January so I can play it there till it is fully patched. Thanks!
Just finished Subnautica for the first time. That was a hell of a satisfying ending. Good game throughout.
Picked Factorio back up for now. Making another go at it on a fresh start. Maybe this time I'll push through and actually launch a rocket.
Mmm, crack cocaine of video games 😃 I always get bogged down after the blue science. This time I got yellow working too, but my logistics is crap. I kind of dislike making a main belt, so I make it more complicated for myself than it needs to be
That's how it goes. The blue science wall is real.
My last run was the first time I pushed past blue. I just barely managed to get yellow and purple going but I overextended my base, everything was falling apart from resource bottlenecks, and the biters had spread so much that pushing out to new resource patches was like pulling teeth. I gave up while trying to get a fresh oil supply up and running.
Current run I just got red and green science going, and trains and my car are ready to go. Iron is starting to run out. Fixing to leave my starter base to go liberate some more iron and coal from the natives.
Deep Rock Galactic is my current game. It's super fun with friends and offers a decent challenge. The slapper of a soundtrack is also a bonus. I love seeing bits of bugs fly in every direction while Dance of the Dreadnaught is rocking my ears.
Also, I just got the Fat Boy overclock. Now the caves have a healthy green glow
Even fun with randoms tbh, everyone's so friendly
Replaying AC Odyssey as Alexios. It's weird to see angry Kassandra.
So far I've been disappointed in dialogue and interactions with NPCs, even in the main story, where I expected things to change between the two characters, but the dialogue has been mostly all the same.
But hey, I get really fun, ancient Greece ship combat. 10/10 recommend the game just for that.
Edit: Also playing through Hades for the first time since purchasing it. I love how Supergiant put their own spin on all the Gods and Demi-Gods while keeping them mostly true to their depictions in Greek myth.
I just finished Assassins Creed Odyssey after 150 hours and 100% completion (aside from the riddles) and goddamn what a journey it was. Really looking forward to Mirage but I still have to play Valhalla
Lies of P has been fun
Beat it Monday night. Immediately started ng+. I'm a slow learner, and I'm just now dialed in with the flow of combat, which is good, because ng+ is no joke.
I've been trying out Rimworld for the first time!
Raiders sure are delicious, and their skin makes such comfy armchairs!
Just stay away from the luciferium!
I'm playing Slay the Princess! It's sort of like a puzzle/visual novel hybrid, where you're trying to explore all the routes to find all the mini 'endings'. It's been really fun to try and work my way through each scenario, unlocking new paths to see new possibilities. The art style is this hand drawn looking sketchbook style that is super cool to watch animate, as well.
Dave the Diver. Not sure why I never heard about the game - it's great. Hot pepper tuna for life
Starfield, The Crew Motorfest, and Empyrion.
I finally started advancing on the main story in starfield and the faction quests and the game really picked up, got hooked for sure. I think it passed fallout 4 on my list
Spiderman 2 and Mario Bros Wonder.
Mainly Spiderman, but play the other when my daughter is playing her SM2 game.
I'm playing Costume Quest. Fun little game that I had forever on Steam.
Sea of Stars.
Story is a bit too cliché at the moment, but graphics, soundtrack, gameplay and exploration are top notch. It really captures the feeling of being a kid, coming back home from school and playing those old school JRPG, but the QoL features make it much more enjoyable, and it doesn't waste your time like those games.
I'm really satisfied for now. I also like the cast, it's a nice change of pace from the edgy/moody characters that lots of JRPG seem to have. Sitting down at the firepit and listening to the two protagonists joking and having fun among themselves really makes me like them.
My only gripe is the story. As I said, it's a bit too much on the "generic" side. Like, it's not bad, I'm having fun, but it feels like, you know, been there, done that. Hopefully it gets better later on.
I just finished it, then went back for the bonus side quests so I could get the true ending.
I wished the writing was less childish, but like you, I really enjoyed the texture of the characters. They really do Garl right. The original final bossfight is laughably easy if you've learned how to use Serai, but the "true ending" final boss is more fun. Overall I'm 4/5 on it.
I totally agree, Garl is awesome.
At first I thought he was the comic relief guy, and I'd spend the following 20-40 hours listening to cringe-inducing Marvel-like humor. Instead they crafted a character that was funny but never over-the-top, and actually proved useful a few times (especially on a chapter that I won't discuss because I'm not sure how spoilers work on Lemmy and its various applications yet).
I have not finished the game yet, and although the story is a bit cliché, it also has a few good moments, and I'm loving the cast so far.
I just started this too! Agreed on all fronts. It's gorgeous, the combat is refined and a combination of a lot of great old-school JRPG mechanics, I like all the winks and tongue-in-cheek mentions of classic tropes. I was just really hoping the story wasn't going where I thought it was going. But now that I have gotten a certain bit in, it feels like it's going exactly where I think it's going. But it's such a self-aware game that I hope I'm wrong. Because you're right, the characters are actually likeable and do at times subvert tropes, blatantly even, like they know we expected them to behave a certain way. Fingers crossed.
The one thing that pulls me away from JRPGs is when their story is too generic. All the best ones I’ve enjoyed had some truly unpredictable, or even just highly dramatic, elements to their story.
I’ve been playing The Outer Worlds. I restarted with a new character focused on dialog and tech skills after seeing how easy the combat is.
I like the game and really wish the discussion around it stopped simply painting it as “Fallout New Vegas In Space”, because it is not. Thinking of it that way sets misguided expectations.
The writing quality and sensibilities are clearly from many of the same minds behind New Vegas, but the game’s overall design is much guided for the player than New Vegas. In a lot of ways it feels like a classic BioWare RPG. Instead of a giant open world, there are various hubs that have curated content and which are opened up to the player in a quasi linear way.
The setting is very well defined and there is a clear vision for it. So many game settings are generic or uninspired. I haven’t played Starfield, but the footage of it never grabbed me with its kind of generic looking future. The Outer Worlds has a schtick and it leans into it 110%.
The combat is smooth, no surprise on the Unreal 4 engine. It is a hair too easy, but I prefer easy over hard when the enemy AI is so simple. I’m not a fan of bullets sponges or increased mobs of enemies to increase difficulty.
One single and huge complaint I have is the PC controls are not fully rebindable. They are only partially rebindable which is a headache for a left handed IJKL player. The game won’t let me rebind to my preference and I ended up writing my own script in AutoHotkey, which I then have to run whenever playing the game.
I finally finished Assassin's Creed Valhalla, after nearly 300 hours. Holy fuck, there is so much video game in that god-damn video game. It just keeps going for so much longer than it needs to. Then on top of that they went and added several new features like raiding, and a roguelike game mode which I enjoyed.
It's a mediocre game, but it's a fun time if you're like me and just enjoy exploring big maps, collecting items, upgrading gear, etc. I enjoyed the DLC, but I'm not planning on picking up Dawn of Ragnarök because the mythical storyline just doesn't interest me.
Been playing Mario wonder and destiny although I need to start up starfield again soon.
I've really been enjoying Wonder, I find the online stuff a lot more fun than I thought it would be.
Just upgraded my home internet from a spotty 50 Mbps with lots of packet loss to a 250 Mbps with cheaper monthly costs. So most of the time I'm just downloading games for the heck of it. I might not need to use my HDD to backup games anymore as the download speed is the same as my external HDD speeds ♪～(´ε｀ )
Diablo 4 season 2. Leveling and equipment progress is faster so it makes ranking up glyphs feel really slow. Vampire thing was okay, the powers were cool changes but the rewards board is lame after getting the one Vampire power on it. The Varshan boss under the tree has been kicking my ass, but hopefully I can get boss fights better dialed in the closer I get to lv100.
Darkest Dungeon with a buncha mods, shoutout to all the patient gamers out there
Uncharted on PS4. Fancied an action game that was tight and linear. I find too open world doesn't respect my time and I don't like grindy. I'm finally comfortable to play a game on easy and whizz though rather than challenge myself more and spend ages on it or never finish it. It's still fun and even on easy, some of the gameplay is repetitive.
Also, always playing street fighter. Used to be V, now VI. Finisnf it is great and fun but it's not as much fun creating combos as V, but the new mechanics are good so overall it's better.
God of War Ragnarok about 6 hours in. And just started Returnal to play as my multiplayer game with a buddy online. Got to the first boss just myself and almost beat it. Love the vibe overall. I'll also probably start Spiderman 2 this week
Back to playing the Sims 4, and watching Detroit: Become Human playthrough online. I want to play it but not sure about what platform
A mix of Factorio and Wylde flowers.
I'm trying to play Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead again and I've been eyeing the Quake remasters. My SO is playing Death Stranding from the start again because their Epic cloud savegame didn't take before formatting. Also, we are addicted to Boomerang Fu.
Spiderman 2, and it’s amazing.
Are you finding there to be almost no side missions aside from the collectibles? I've had 2 small side quests for Miles so far, and I think that's all...
That's really great to hear. I heard an estimate of the game length elsewhere too. I'm really glad to hear that overall it's generally a tighter experience rather than including a bunch of collectathons.
Well I do hope more open up at some point. I like good narrative side missions in open world games. I want to be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Ah ok, gotcha. Who knows, I might agree once I actually pick the game up. I just don't want a map filled with what feels to me like filler.
There are 2 side-storylines for Miles with a bunch of missions (the museum and school one), and at least 1 for Peter (the flame).
Mostly Slime Rancher 2 and Elder Scrolls Online lately.
I loved Slime Rancher 2, and played the heck out of it at launch, but am trying not to play any more until full release. It feels like I ate some of the cookie dough early and now I can hardly wait for the cookies to be done, though. I can't wait to see what they add to it in the future!
Yeah, I ended up going back and playing more SR1 for similar reasons - but so far SR2 is looking great!
I finally started up Persona 5.
No, not Royal. Vanilla P5.
I’ll probably get to Royal three years after Persona 6 has been released.
Titanfall 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 for the past few weeks.
also DCS if that counts as a game
Return to Moria. It's a lot of fun, adventuring through a Dwarven mine with a few friends. It was hard to put down, but I suppose we need to eat and sleep at some point.
How are you getting on? I'm really considering getting this - I get paid today and have a week next week without the family... Been playing and enjoying Planet Crafters and Forever Skies, and I'm in the survival-building-exploring mood at the moment.
I dunno how fun it would be alone, because dwarves are a race that are all about being together and some of the features lean into that, but we're having a lot of fun with it. It's challenging, but not to the point where we feel overwhelmed or lost. And the atmosphere it has is just right, they did a great job taking what we know from the books and the style we got from the movies, and turning that into a video game.
I have been trying to beat a 2nd run in Slay the Spire. I also have been failing to get past round 15 in that endless mode in Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate.
my advice is stack attack cards in act 1, while specializing for specific bosses. while that's going on, pay attention to relics or cards that might support a build/theme. the rest of the game, try to refine that theme to make it happen as reliably as possible.
also, speed is better then building up towards massive strength.
On my 2nd New Playthrough of Elden Ring. I was a STR/FTH build in my first playthrough, so I decided to use the build opposite to that, DEX/INT. I love the Moonveil and the Dark Moon Greatsword, but the Godslaying Greatsword has a good place in my heart. That, and funny dragon lightning. I'm going back to STR/FTH on NG+.
On a side note, beating Malenia for the 2nd time is satisfying as hell
Been playing KP Liberation on Arma 3 again with a group of friends. It's always a blast and older games just have such a nice feel to them.
Barotruma for the honkmother the honkening shall continue
I've never gotten past the second (or maybe third) zone of Barotrauma. usually I play with my brother, and we have a slew of mods that add new equipment and let you uninstall and reinstall equipment on subs, and we end up turning a rustbucket into a profitable cargo hauler with storage racks in every conceivable space and a wire up controller to manage the reactor for us. have you ever gotten to endgame content?
Yep a couple of times never completed the campaign tho I've gotten 600hrs in the game I tend to troll around and dabble in some griefing I mainly play on mutitplayer servers
Just started playing cities: skylines 2 (with gamepass, I didn't preorder) and I think it's good. The performance, while bad, isn't as bad as people are saying. I'm on low settings + 1080p with a gtx 1650 super, and a ryzen 7 5700x and I get around 20-30 frames, which is bad but not unplayable and there will be mods that improve this.
Getting back into Last Epoch again. Really excited to finally have a launch date for 1.0 in February 2024.
I'm between games right now but I just finished and did a bunch of the extra stuff in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
I've recently upgraded my pc and I've been playing Anno 1800 with all season pass. I can play that game for 10 hours straight. I really have to tell myself to stop. There is just always something to do in that game, I just love it.
Snowrunner
Man, I gotta get back to that. I almost cleared the whole first Michigan map entirely and took a break, but I really loved the slow paced thoughtful approach to a "driving" game.
Just finished Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty yesterday, and it's easily one of the best experience I ever had. The game's not perfect, it has bugs, some balancing problems, some cliches. But it has a lot of charm and a very gripping story. I absolutely loved it.