What are you playing right now?

[GhostofAnakin]

I know they probably did it so you don't miss out on much content, but I think one of the problems with Elex and you still getting access to 99% of the quests no matter which faction you join is there's not much replayability that I've found.  Apart from the faction-specific quests to move up the faction rank, my play through as an Outlaw mirrors almost exactly my play through as a Cleric.

[Katphood]

Decided to give Silent Hill: Origins a whirl on the PS2. It seems that Team Silent was the only developer that could make a true Silent Hill experience. Maybe I am too quick to judge though so who knows but fact is that Konami went totally bonkers after SH4(yeah, 4 wasn't that bad).

 

I'll make sure to try Silent Hill: Shattered Memories after this but I ain't holding my breath.

Edited November 28, 2018 by Katphood

[wolfrider100]

Forgot I had preordered Elex on GOG a while back, so I'm playing that currently and also Darksiders II The Deathinitive Edition (which Oner give me).

Edited November 28, 2018 by wolfrider100

[Tale]

Unavowed

 

Do you like Wadjet eye? You'll like it, might be Dave Gilbert's best work. Do you like point and click adventure games? Then why didn't you say yes to the first question?

[SadExchange]

Picked up Spider Man on the PS4 in the recent sale and must say, this is a fun game.  Traversing the city is great fun and the different objectives have kept my interest.  I find myself doing all the collectible tasks throughout the city and assume there's going to be a point where I just have main quest and side missions, however both of these have been good fun so far.  Just a nice game to relax to relax to really with a fun combat system and nice upgrading system.  Interested to see how the story pans out and then break into the available DLC.

[GhostofAnakin]

Picked up Spider Man on the PS4 in the recent sale and must say, this is a fun game.  Traversing the city is great fun and the different objectives have kept my interest.  I find myself doing all the collectible tasks throughout the city and assume there's going to be a point where I just have main quest and side missions, however both of these have been good fun so far.  Just a nice game to relax to relax to really with a fun combat system and nice upgrading system.  Interested to see how the story pans out and then break into the available DLC.

 

I found that traversing the city as Spidey was more fun than the stuff in the Arkham games as Batman.  I also enjoyed the main story in Spider-Man more than the most recent Arkham Knight game.  The side content in Arkham City, IMO, is superior to either, however.

[Keyrock]

Artifact.  It's a blast to play.  For those unaware, this is Richard Garfield & Valve's new DotA themed collectible card game.  It mimics DotA by using some of DotA's heroes, abilities, and items and the setup of having 5 heroes on each team spread among 3 lanes.  Beyond that, it's a completely different game.  The idea is to destroy 2 of your opponent's towers, or a tower and an ancient, before they do the same to you.  Taken on it's own, the battle happening in each lane isn't particularly complex, what gives the game it's depth and complexity is that you are essentially playing 3 games at once, with each lane being its own game withing a game, and a larger overall metagame, since, while most abilities can only be used within a single lane, there are global abilities, cross-lane abilities, and abilities that can transfer heroes from one lane to another.  Generally speaking, the idea is to win 2 of the 3 lanes.  Alternatively, you can go for the ancient in a lane that you've already destroyed the tower, but the ancient has twice the health of a tower, so it tends to be time consuming.

 

Anyway, there are strategies and complexities to this game that I won't even begin to grasp for quite some time.  From some of the people that have been playing since the alpha, it takes some 30 to 50 hours before you even begin getting decent at the game, which is what I expected.

 

As for the elephant in the room, the monetization.  The game is $20 and that gets you 2 starter decks, 10 booster packs (12 cards each, 1 guaranteed rare in each pack), and 5 tickets (I don't know what these do).  Booster packs are $2.  Also there is a marketplace where you can buy, sell, or trade individual cards.  So yeah, they charge you up front AND there are microtransactions in the game, something I've spoken out about before, and I'm not about to give Valve a free pass here.  I will say, in Valve's defense, that this is the exact same way that physical CCGs work and at least it's $20, not $60.  Also, you can just play draft and you never need to buy cards or card packs ever (beyond your original $20 purchase of the game itself).  I haven't opened any of my booster packs yet and probably won't for quite some time as I have no intention of playing constructed until I've played draft for quite some time and have some idea of what makes a good deck and what my preferred play style is.  You can earn pack by playing draft too, but I can't tell you how long that takes yet.

 

Still, Valve IS double dipping here, which sucks.

 

Anyway, once I win The Artifact International, my winnings will pay for my initial purchase and then some anyway. 

[SonicMage117]

Picked up Spider Man on the PS4 in the recent sale and must say, this is a fun game.  Traversing the city is great fun and the different objectives have kept my interest.  I find myself doing all the collectible tasks throughout the city and assume there's going to be a point where I just have main quest and side missions, however both of these have been good fun so far.  Just a nice game to relax to relax to really with a fun combat system and nice upgrading system.  Interested to see how the story pans out and then break into the available DLC.

It's a great casual experience, even on the hardest difficulty. However, the real challenge comes from the New Game+ and Ultimate Spider-Man mode.

 

Kinda like playing Horizon Zero Dawn on Hard and it's easier than Uncharted, then going to the Hardest difficulty and it makes Dark Souls look like child's play. Weird spike but I mean, pretty neat.

[Keyrock]

Okay, I lied, I opened up a couple of my booster packs.  I couldn't help myself.  I got Drow Ranger in my first pack! 

 

 

Drow Ranger is arguably the best hero in the game right now, going by what the people that have been playing it for months have been saying.  When I looked on the marketplace Axe (considered by most to be the second or third best hero) was the most expensive card being sold, Drow wasn't even for sale, likely because nobody is willing to part with one of their Drow cards.

 

Booster packs are obviously loot boxes, perhaps the original loot boxes, and very obviously gambling (I'm guessing Artifact is not available in Belgium?).  I'd be lying if I said opening the packs wasn't exciting, though.  Luckily, I know I have the willpoer to not just buy a bunch more packs after I finish opening all the ones that came with my initial purchase, even if I really want a Prellex and a Kanna and I don't get either in my remaining packs (I haven't so far).

Edited November 29, 2018 by Keyrock

[marelooke]

Okay, I lied, I opened up a couple of my booster packs.  I couldn't help myself.  I got Drow Ranger in my first pack! 

 

 

Drow Ranger is arguably the best hero in the game right now, going by what the people that have been playing it for months have been saying.  When I looked on the marketplace Axe (considered by most to be the second or third best hero) was the most expensive card being sold, Drow wasn't even for sale, likely because nobody is willing to part with one of their Drow cards.

 

Booster packs are obviously loot boxes, perhaps the original loot boxes, and very obviously gambling (I'm guessing Artifact is not available in Belgium?).  I'd be lying if I said opening the packs wasn't exciting, though.  Luckily, I know I have the willpoer to not just buy a bunch more packs after I finish opening all the ones that came with my initial purchase, even if I really want a Prellex and a Kanna and I don't get either in my remaining packs (I haven't so far).

 

Couldn't be bothered to look up the actual report, so I'm just going to quote a quote from this BBC article ("Yo, I hear you like quotes so I put a quote in your quote."):

 

But others pointed out that the Belgium Gaming Commission's definition specifically requires there to be "a game element" in opening the crate, which differentiates loot boxes from trading cards.

 

Arguably this could be considered a loophole just waiting to be abused and I wouldn't be particularly surprised if the video game industry got physical trading card games in trouble due to their greed sooner or later.

 

EDIT: typo

Edited November 29, 2018 by marelooke

[Mamoulian War]

IIRC, the original Belgium report stated, that physical CCGs are uncomparable to any form of digital lootboxes, because some kimd of odds or so. But I can't find the article right now.

[Hurlshort]

Sell those cards now! They will probably drop in value over time.

[Tale]

IIRC, the original Belgium report stated, that physical CCGs are uncomparable to any form of digital lootboxes, because some kimd of odds or so. But I can't find the article right now.

As I recall, it was because all items had the same rarity. The company being compared against printed all cards in the same quantity.

[marelooke]

IIRC, the original Belgium report stated, that physical CCGs are uncomparable to any form of digital lootboxes, because some kimd of odds or so. But I can't find the article right now.

 

 

 

IIRC, the original Belgium report stated, that physical CCGs are uncomparable to any form of digital lootboxes, because some kimd of odds or so. But I can't find the article right now.

As I recall, it was because all items had the same rarity. The company being compared against printed all cards in the same quantity.

 

 

Cards in most collectible card games don't have the same chance to appear (those collectible sticker books were used as an example iirc), so that in itself won't be enough.

 

From the article I translated way back when:

Also from the original article are the "rules" (probably heavily simplified for the sake of the article) the gambling commission uses to determine whether something is gambling (tried to translate as literally as I'm able):

• there has to be a game element
• there have to be certain stakes that lead to gains or loss
• there needs to be a factor of chance

 

There's no game element to acquiring card packs for physical card games, hence they're in the clear.

[Keyrock]

I'm playing a bunch of casual draft in Artifact.  I have some deck building experience from my MTG days and some of that does carry over to Artifact (some doesn't), but the main thing is just going to be playing enough that I memorize mana costs of all (or most) cards and what cards people tend to play in what decks.  Right now I'm mainly thinking "right, they still have a lot of mana so they can potentially cast powerful stuff".  I'll start getting better when I can think "right, they have 5 mana left, so I need to watch out for spell X and spell Y, but I don't need to worry about spell Z because they don't have the mana for it".

[GhostofAnakin]

So ... I was hoping joining the Outlaws would be much more involved.  Instead, it was basically some minor fetch quests and a large scale battle to move up the ranks.  No real "story quests".

 

Back to just wandering Magalan.

[melkathi]

Got the neutral ending in Mechanicus with both NPCs disappointed in me

 

I hope they continue working on the difficulty. The last boss should not so easily be taken down without ever even having a chance to try to attack me.

[Katphood]

Mutant Year Zero will be available on Xbox Game Pass so...

 

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by Katphood

[Fenixp]

Got the neutral ending in Mechanicus

You mean the -neural- ending? Eh? Eh?

[SonicMage117]

I finally finished Red Dead Redemption 2 tonight. I couldn't be happier for

John and his family.

 

 

Really. They deserve it.

 

 

 

Now I can finally uninstall and move on, I felt like I just got out of a freakin theater after a really long movie. Really good movie, think Lord Of The Rings marathon in theater for someone who never seen the movies or read the books before but loves medieval stuff. That's how I feel right now lol

Edited November 30, 2018 by SonicMage117

[Fenixp]

In today's episode of Hitting men, let's talk about the dynamic soundtrack.

I bloody love soundtracks that are properly dynamic. 'Properly' as in 'Dynamically react to your actions' as opposed to 'There's a different track for combat and for non-combat'. So there's the Hotel mission and on approach to the hotel, the game'll interrupt its usual dramatic ambient music with good ol' fashioned orchestral Bondage.

You then get in the hotel and do whatever - so naturally, I talked to the receptionist, told him ... A name and a steward took me to my room where Agency stashed some poison. Naturally, entering the safe room would start a musical cue.

While I was looking around the hotel and found a lone chef that I could choke out and disguise as, dramatic music would start playing as I assaulted him and while I was hiding his body, which then changed to (what I assume is) 47's triumphant theme when I managed it all.

I posted this over yonder in the pictures thread, but it's related, so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UykPVofQuyU

[melkathi]

 

Got the neutral ending in Mechanicus

You mean the -neural- ending? Eh? Eh?

 

 

Comment read.

Response: I allow my emotional inhibitors to compartmentalize amusement.

[LadyCrimson]

 Diablo 3/PS4. At least in single-player, the game catering drops to your class (mostly gear with DEX drops with Monk, mostly gear with STR for Crusader) is sorta annoying/dull. I get it, ppl don't want to find useless stuff for the chr. they're playing on, but they could have made class-catering drops a little less extreme. The loot drop lvls scaling (in all Acts) with clvl is also a bit annoying at times, but again, I get why I suppose.

 

Everything is catered to the Paragon levels now, and since you can switch the basic difficulties without having to even finish Normal first, lvl 1-70 is just training wheels I guess. The balance for 1-70 feels totally out of whack. Normal/Hard and even early Hell is comically easy as a result, since there are now seemingly ten other difficulties to consider. I found it amusing I could technically level up to 70 never leaving Act1. I lvl'd up 1 chr. to 42 - didn't take too long really - before being bored of that experiment and finally killing the Butcher. And of course the Seasons (ladders). Sorta MMO styled never-ending post-game to retain high level players, where a long-term audience no longer cares if it's too easy getting there.

 

The best thing about the game (outside of item hording addiction which is just an arpg fixture) is the pets. It is so freaking cute the way they dash to pick up gold for you (their only purpose besides looks) that I'll often stand still waiting for them to do it even if I could reach the gold first.

 

That all said, oddly, the way D3 is now, I'd rate it a little higher than first-PC-release version. It's at least more casual "fun" overall than originally, with all that post-game/Paragon/Seaonal to suck up 1000's of hours if you're of a mind (I'm not of that mind). It still doesn't feel like "Diablo" to me, tho. Not at all.

 

Edit: and the best thing about console version is you can play offline

Edited November 30, 2018 by LadyCrimson

[melkathi]

Trying Mutant Year Zero.

As a PC gamer I strongly dislike the controls. Ported from gamepad, made for console. Not a PC game.

[GhostofAnakin]

Fallout 76 seems to be getting hammered in reviews.  Good thing I saw that before buying it.  It was one of the few newer games that was actually on sale for Black Friday.