The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion

Quinten@lemmy.worldmod to Games@lemmy.world – 80 points –

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.

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Rollercoaster Tycoon 1, 2, and 3. Been on a coaster kick.

What do you think of 3? I just couldn't get into it and I think it's that the 3D camera just makes it harder to see what you want to see and select what you want to select, as opposed to 1/2 where that was so effortless. That bad feeling stopped me from trying it thoroughly.

I actually am one of the few fans of all 3. I'm also looking into Planet Coaster made by the same people that made 3

You won't really appreciate how good 3 is until you start messing around with the UI and really get a feel for when you'll need to toggle on ride height flags and path height flags, etc.

It's gone largely unnoticed on Lemmy (at least it hasn't come up on my feed) but I've been playing The Finals since it launched during TGA. I don't normally play F2P games but The Finals is made by ex-DICE employees so I had to try it out. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it's the most fun I've had in an online shooter in almost a decade. It has pretty much killed my Satisfactory factory (because no longer remember what I was doing there) my Remnant 2 playthrough and my plans to return to Destiny before The final shape. And I don't care about any of those other games because there's something so addictively fun about the core gameplay of The Finals that I just can't put it down. I'm probably going to spend the next week(s) also playing this game.

Overall, despite it being F2P game and having the obvious negatives of a F2P game I still strongly recommend The Finals. If this was a full priced title I'd buy it full price.

I tried The Finals a couple days ago and was not enthused about a few aspects of the game: characters are bullet sponges and also take way too many melees to kill, and it's still early in its development so my friends and I encountered several game breaking bugs like clipping through the floor and my friend got stuck facing a certain direction and had to DC to fix it (he even tried switching controllers to confirm it was the game's fault). Fortunately glitches can be fixed and my other gripes can get fixed with balance changes. Also it is super annoying that when switching weapons/tools you have to press a button to confirm the switch which feels quite clunky. Overall, the game shows some promise.

I haven't noticed any clipping through the floor bugs but I know on PC there's a weird mouse bug where your mouse input freezes and you can't use the mouse, but it passes after a few seconds so it's not to the extent of having to DC to fix it. There's also no extra confirmation input needed on PC which means using weapons or tools is definitely smoother on PC.

As for the bullet sponge characters. I personally prefer more bullet sponge characters and think most other shooters require way too few hits to kill which more often than not boils the fights down to who shot first. More shots to kill lets players utilize movement or other gadgets to their advantage, which IMO makes for much more interesting gameplay. It's also much easier to track targets on PC (though, I don't know how strong the aim assist is on consoles) and the ability to turn faster might make the combat more enjoyable on PC compared to consoles. I don't think the theoretical time to kill (TTK) is that much higher than other games (Except COD because COD has stupid-low TTK), if you get the drop on someone they get deleted pretty fast.

I think the game has a pretty good balance on how much effort it takes to kill others because it suits with the rest of the gameplay loop. For instance lower TTK would also have to mean lower cashout steal times and lower respawn times and the fact that one player can wipe an entire team with one mag (which is what you can't do right now unless you use the flamethrower) and then you also have to make throwables faster to use because what's the point of a throwable if guns can just delete people? There are so many other aspects of the gameplay that depend on the characters being a bit bullet spongy.

I loved the Finals when it was in beta. It legitimately was the most fun I had in a multiplayer game since Titanfall 2 and Lawbreakers. It just had that raw chaos feeling that I was craving.

Then I heard the announcers were AI voices, and that was disheartening. Then I heard that they slowed the movement down for the release to a point that it felt really sluggish so I just haven’t been motivated to try it post-release.

The movement thing is as close to a fake outrage as you can get. The developers have not slowed the game down. The thing that's having the biggest impact on the game feeling slow is the default FOV that has been set to 70. If you played on 90 FOV (or higher) and then play on 70 FOV the game is going to feel extremely slow, but it's a visual difference not a gameplay difference. The game feels exactly the same as it did in open beta.

Vermintide 2 has finally hooked me. I now completely understand what it truly means to collect books and kill rats, and how much fun such activities can be.

Got all the characters up to lv30 so now I’m finally dipping my toes into Legend QPs so I can prepare for the hardest difficulty, Cataclysm.

Vermintide 2 didn't hook me. But I've already got over a hundred hours in Darktide.

Good stuff.

Been enjoying lethal company with some friends. Never have I felt that exact combination of the nearly shitting my pants while also dying of laughter.

Been driving a truck in American Truck Simulator while watching Westworld, and Grandma Shirley play Skyrim.

Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate! I just recently got Citra emulator running on my steam deck and it runs great. Plus, Citra can emulate local multiplayer over the internet, so I'm playing with my old buddy who moved to california. Just like we did back in our highschool days.

Borderlands 2! Graphics may not be hyperrealistic but the artstyle is amazing, not to mention the fact it can run on pretty much any setup (even a PS Vita)

I played the shit out of Borderlands 2 until I realized it really wasn’t fun. The guns and stuff are cool, but the shooting feedback wasn’t satisfying enough to justify continuing. Then Borderlands 3 came out and improved in every way on the core mechanics and I was too tired of Borderlands 2 to care. I really wish BL3 came out like 5 years sooner.

oh yeah 100% agree, I've modded the shit out of BL2 to the point nearly every mechanic is overhauled.

Hmm, me and my buddies have been playing Warhammer 40k Darktide. I only really play it because they like it. I am actually starting a new playthrough of outward and wanna use less mods this time. Maybe even get further in the story and not take the hardest route from the start! 😑

I actually just finished playing Dredge. It was a lot of fun, though not as horrifying as I had hoped.

I am playing dredge right now! Very close to finishing the main quest, just want to get some more fish under my belt eheh. I agree that it hasn't quite been horrifying but I think they did a great job at "creepy" and at creating the circumstances to make you a more reckless fisherman the longer you play (every time I sleep through the day I remember the mayor telling me how unreliable the previous fisherman was bc he slept through the day to go out at night....)

Path of exile: Affliction. It's fun.

I'm with you there. This league's been really great so far. I'm looking forward to seeing how others use the new gem variants.

I tend to jump between games quite a bit depending on my mood and what else I'm doing at the time so this ended up a bit longer than planned. Sorry for the wall of text, just wanted to vent somewhere.

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

I'm still pretty early into the game (chapter/world 2, I think?) so all the puzzles are rather easy but that doesn't matter - I'm having fun. It looks lovely too.

Ico

I'm a bit torn on this one. I really like the idea, (so far limited) story and the atmosphere of this game. On the other hand, I'm not a huge fan of the camera (I get what they were going for but it can be quite bad at times) or combat. Oh boy, the combat...

I can live with it being janky and not particularly involved but why in the name of our lord satan did they have to put it on display so often? There are SO MANY combat encounters and all of them feel like a chore. Combat made me go from "oh yeah, let's play this legendary title" to asking myself whether I want to go through it that day, each time I'm thinking about booting it. Hell, there were a couple of times where I entered a new room, saw the game spawning another batch of enemies and thinking "you know what? I'd rather play something else right now".

I'm still going to finish the game as I do enjoy it for the most part but it'll definitely be a rougher experience than expected.

NFS Most Wanted (classic)

It's a classic so no much to write here. Still plays well and it's perfect to pop in for a race or two in between doing other things. I do miss some of the events and atmosphere from Underground games but MW is good enough for it to not be a problem.

Katawa Shoujo

I've been in a mood for VNs recently and decided to start with this little gem. I played it once before, and wanted to see how well it holds up (it's still pretty fun so far). I'm probably going to try a few different routes this time just to see how they go - not going for a full completion though.

Puzzle Quest

It's a RPG/match 3 title for PSP. I'm not a puzzle game aficionado but I do like to play them from time to time and this one is really fun (I think I played more of it than all the already mentioned games combined so far). I do have 2 problems with it - they aren't particularly serious but still something I'd like to mention:

  • I really don't like the music - it's not bad, I just can't stand it for whatever reason. It's the same issue I have with Skyrim funnily enough.
  • RNG can be rough - the amount of times I lost a battle on turn 1 is not even funny. RNG gonna RNG so whatever, it's even less of an issue since defeat doesn't have any real consequences as far as I can tell (non important to matter anyway). I really like this one.

RimWorld

It's something I drift to whenever I don't have anything else to play. It's good, though how much fun I have depends on where my head is at the time - right now I think I'm getting close to being done for a bit.

Tetris DX

This might be my most played game on my Steam Deck. It's a Gameboy Color version of Tetris, what else is there to say? It's really addictive.

Wizorb

A fun and colorful block breaker game. I played a little bit of it some years ago but stopped thinking "I'll get back to it when I'm done with other stuff". This time installed it to steal some ideas get some inspiration since I'm working on a similar project right now. I like it (for the most part) - there are some technical issues (game doesn't scale properly for ultrawide screens) and some that come from being used to my own game but it's good. I'll definitely play more of it for fun rather than just research.

Special mentions:

  • Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - saying I played it would be a bit much. I tried it for a bit and can see it being fun once you're familiar with how to play but I'm just not in a head space where I can be bothered to get used to the controls at the moment. I'll try again some day.
  • The Sims - I mostly just wanted to see how it fares on linux. No issues so far.
  • Bang Dream / Girls' Frontline - my two daily drivers. Both are gachas, both are F2P friendly, both are fun.

Very very slowly playing through Sea of Stars still. I’ve just gotten to the second island and the combat has hit a decent difficulty spike, which is fun.

Also been trying (and mostly failing) to play Mass Effect Legendary. Been about 7 years since I beat them last, and I love the trilogy and really want to revisit it. The music in Mass effect 1 is just so good.

Ooo, I played the Sea of Stars demo! That game looks pretty neat :3 I think it felt like it had way more to it, a sort of deeper love and care for the game than I'd expected. Good mention ^.^

Good luck with MELE! Am kinda curious what's failing? Software/hardware/difficulty?

The Ascent with my wife in local co-op, really nice one as she's not really intro video games, but killing everything on screen and having to coordinate ourselves seems to be enjoyable.

As it's almost Christmas, watching Harry Potter and playing Hogwarts Legacy creates quite the atmosphere for holidays.

Don’t mind me, just doing everything 16 year-old me despised just so I can say I defeated the Max-Tac operators.

For context, the first time I shot a pedestrian in GTA IV just because I could, I felt an immense amount of guilt.

Now I’m a full-blown cyberpsycho trying to dismantle the police force in Night City gonk by gonk.

I got myself a new computer, and now I can finally play one of my favorite games, which is Warhammer Dawn of war II. Haven’t played it in maybe 5 years. Glad to be back

I remeber buying DoWII + Retribution just so I could play The Last Stand with my online friends. Great fun! I very much recommend it, even more than the actual game :)

I only own the base game. But might actually get some DLCs eventually

The Last Stand is the best DLC imo :)

I play alone, but I will check it out for sure. Thanks for the tip!

It´s only fun with people on teamspeak imo. If you play alone the base game is more fun.

Still playing Street Fighter 6 pretty much every day. Still absolutely loving it.

Spider-Man Remastered, going through on Ng+ and ultimate difficulty to 100%, having just 100% Miles Morales. Those games have really clicked with me and makes me want to play the Arkham games again.

The Finals, have really enjoyed the betas and the full release being shadow dropped was a nice surprise. Definitely going to have more time when Spider-Man is done.

Next on the list to play is Sea of Stars, and Granblue Vs Rising.

Jumping between Warframe and BG3, two games that are more than capable of keeping me busy with something Def excited for Whispers in the Walls

Got back into Kerbal Space Progam.

Funny I get bit by the KSP bug once again just before the Science update drops for KSP2, but c'est la guerre, I love playing with a buncha mods and trying to do complicated remote controlled missions while trying to factor in communications issues and times when the craft isn't in the sun.

I need better hardware just so I can properly (for me) enjoy KSP v.v By which I mean like, RSS/RO though I prefer fictiony star systems (Ciro system <3 !!) :3 ^.^ Such a cool, fun thing, especially with lots of mods :3

I've just started with the OPM mod and it's been a delight exploring the new planets and their many many moons! RSS/RO seems like a fun challenge one day, but I do like the simplicity of the 1/10th scale Kerbal world.

What's the Ciro system? Are there mods for entirely new solar systems too?

Oh yeah, lots of them! So way back in ancient times we had... https://outer-planets.fandom.com/wiki/Planet_Packs 😅 The Ciro system is the one from the Galileo Planet Pack https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/152136-ksp-1121-galileos-planet-pack-v166-23-sept-2021/ Aaand I loved it. There was a way to scale it up to RSS scale, which kinda trashed my system but I still tried to play it 😅

Smaller and simpler is definitely fun but I've got the bug where I always feel like I'm missing something if there aren't as many mods as possible installed 😹 I assume there are still system replacers available now... but suddenly it occurs to me that maybe that's stopped being a thing? Hard to imagine KSP losing an entire category of mods but I feel compelled to point out that I don't actually know these state of it these days :-\

I‘ve actually continued playing Reus which has been collecting dust in my Steam library for a decade. I‘m still 50/50 on whether I know what I‘m doing or not, but I am aiming for all the achievements, let‘s see how that goes lol

Shout-out to anyone who has even heard of this game.

Reus is great! I spent a summer several years back sinking my teeth into it good. It really scratches the itch for playing Civilization when I don't have time to play Civilization.

I never did get all the achievements. Some of them are crazy hard to pull off within the time limit. Good luck to you if you end up sticking with it.

I'm quite looking forward to Reus 2.

Red Dead Redemption 2. Finally!

Coming off the heels of NG++ on Lies of P, it's rather hard to get into. Hoping it becomes more engaging over time.

Against the Storm just hit 1.0, it's pretty amazing to see a game come out fully formed unlike some AAA titles. It's not genre defining but pretty unique, the same vein as Frostpunk and Banished but with an overworld and a WC3 aesthetic

I'm playing Risk of Rain Returns and having a great time with it. I'd love to see how it feels on a Steam Deck, since it seems like a perfect game for that. Still haven't had a successful run solo but the journey is what matters.

Sometimes fitting in Super Mario Wonder when I'm feeling whimsical. It's really fresh and the one off mechanics that pop up are really entertaining.

I'm also getting into Slay the Spire for my lunch break game every now and then. Boy howdy is this a great game. My current run was a near bust as I discarded a core card of my deck by accident. I suspect I would have been better off, but I'm still trudging through haha.

Taking some lighter games at the moment but very much looking forward to picking up Metro Last Light and V Rising as my winter games this year. Hoping they'll be good ones since my gaming sessions will be decimated next year when my daughter is born!

I've been cleaning some achievements for Stardew valley and it's really good. I also restarted Metroid dread for a hard mode playthrough. Oh, if you like Metroid I just found a romhack called Super Metroid Arcade and it's really fun, you might want to play the original game first though.

Just so much of the OSRS league, it's honestly like crack.

I recently reinstalled monster hunter world only to find I need to grind anjanath a hundred times to get my artillery charm upgrade.

I'm not sure how long this will last before I uninstall it again.

Currently playing Lords of the Fallen and enjoying it so far. I would probably enjoy it more if I didn't suck, but with enough full sends I have gotten past every boss I've made it to.

Diablo IV, picked it up during the last Steam sale

Same here: it is my first Diablo game and I am loving it! 80+ hours in and now I'm just grinding levels to try and get to lvl 100 and to get fully kitted out in my first character. It's been so cool to grind levels on my Steam Deck OLED while watching TV on the couch.

Mixture is things.

Grounded, An Ankou, Nordic Ashes, Orbital Bullet, Wizard of Legend...

So roguelikes and a fun survival.

Monsters of the week, more escape then anything else I've played for a long time!

Joyride, the old XBL racing game. It's surprisingly fun and stupid and has absolutely no stakes or stress mechanics. It's a nice break.

On a conan rp server a lot lately, also discovered rounds with a friend, it's amazing.

I installed a bunch of vanilla expanded mods for Rimworld and I've been trying to get a royalty victory

Breath of the Wild and Hollow Knight on my Steam Deck.

Divinity Original Sin II on the PC.

Halls of Torment: I've been playing it religiously for the last two weeks now. And I only have two Steam achievements left to collect. It's Vampire Suvivors but Diablo. A simple concept, but it really works. The game has great atmosphere, and it really is a steal for the price. I just wish there were less frame drops, when my screen gets too busy at the end of a level. But it's really the only complaint I have for the game.

Can't get enough of Season of Discovery right now. Cannot wait to finish work to get back home and login!

Currently playing monster hunter world with a pinch of darkest dungeon and a side of borderlands 3.

I've just started another playthrough of Mass Effect: Andromeda! Took ages to get the mod manager and EA's app thing and Linux/Wine/??? all cooperating (or at least not fighting me effectively enough that I can't play the game :P ) but off I've gone!

Hmmmm, what else lately. Battlefield V, apparently. Bit of PlanetSide 2. Started SIC-1 (the single instruction set computer programming game) but haven't really been in a mood for it. Tried Stellaris again to see if Swayland changed the microstutters. It did not. Game looks horrifically complex now too, so meh. Tried again to find a new build that interested me in Path of Exile but no :-\ Uhhhhmmmm, touched Endless Space 2 a little, played some Helium Rain (which is free now! Very neat little space freelancer-to-empire kinda thing, like an itty bitty baby version of an X game). Almost went back to Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous which I love but an out-of-game sad and increasing memory-distance from my playthrough are making it harder to go back.

Oh, also logging into STO for the winter event and complaining about the Winter Wonderland. You'd think that being an ice princess I'd love the winter event but it's awful. You know a winter event is bad when I strongly prefer the summer event! Totally backward, makes no sense! Rar rar rar, et cetera!

Anyway, this has been my latelish-gamesy ramble. I hope somecritter has enjoyed or at least I won't get downvoted into Oblivion. Though at least if I do I can maybe meet some cool Daedra :3 (This post is being written directly after "waking up" (assuming I have, in fact, done so) and as such the thoughts represented within may or may not be my own, rational, intelligible, or representative of any official royal policy or belief)

Shadow Warrior (reboot) because its stupid and easy and I'm too dead inside to attempt elden ring or baulders gate right now.

I've been playing a metric ton of Star Ocean: Second Story R.

I just love a good port of the best Star Ocean game.