What are you playing right now?

[majestic]

Probably a dumb question, but I take it it completely sucks as a single player game?  Do you essentially have to play co-op to get anything out of it?  What's the campaign like?

 

That's not really a dumb question, one would expect a decent single player experience in a BioWare game, but alas, no. At some point it is essentially unavoidable to wade into multiplayer because the campaign gets put on hold until you grind out a list of things to do in Freeplay. And that includes repairing three allied javelins (i.e. resurrect someone). It's not that bad, I spent a few hours in freeplay and am essentially done except for missing a single javelin repair, but it's annoying nonetheless.

 

The campaign itself is mostly an excuse plot and the dialogue shallow. I mean, even for a BioWare game.

 

 

Gotta justify the 130+ hours I've spent playing it.

 

I think I have close to 200, most of that in the multiplayer, though I did finish the campaign.

 

I keep telling myself that I did it so you wouldn't have to.

 

 

This is more kaputt than SWTOR ever was at launch.

 

Ouch. I wonder to what extent the game's (technical) problems are down to the choice of engine. Are the shooter mechanics any good at least? How's the AI?

 

The combat is like Andromeda without cover mechanics or the ability to switch your skills. Back at The Forge you can equip - depending on your choice of javelin - a certian amount of gear. A Ranger for instance can have various types of grenades and a missile launcher that you can fit with frag, fire, frost or seeker grenades or AoE missiles, homing missiles, poison darts or a laser beam but it's nowhere near as flexible as Andromeda was.

 

There's combos you can set up and execute.

 

The AI however is completely unable to deal with the vertical movement abilities in the game. Some areas circumvent that by Star Trekking your transporter system - forcing you to fight in no fly zones. It's Andromeda's multiplayer stretched over a co-op game with a campaign. The enemies are, well, dumb, and the difficulty settings apparently only scale damage and hitpoints. With longer range weapons you can even find spots where you can take potshots at enemies (including what passes as "boss" encounter) without them being able to target you.

 

The caveat here being that I only tried Normal and Hard modes so far and I haven't unlocked Strongholds yet, which is what looks like Anthem's 4 player dungeons. The higher difficulties unlock only with higher levels and need, I assume, better gear. Strongholds with story progress.

[Chilloutman]

trying that Enderal, well I would not call it stabel as I alread have 2 crashes in like 5 hours gameplay, and combat system is same boring crap as other Elders scrolls and even if that writing is not that great at least i already found few quests where you can make at least some decisions and it seems some people got some kind of reptation for you so thats already 200% better than what Bethsoft ever produced. Wolrd also seems hand crafted at least to some degree so exploration is fun and rewarding. Was not in many dungeons but even those few I went in seemed better than what Skyrim offered so I think I can recommand it if you can live with flaws mentioned above or if you already liked Skyrim this is pretty decent upgrade in my book, and its free so why not

[Hawke64]

I think I've completed the main story of Toukiden 2. Tried to trigger the final mission, but it was behind ~30 story-free combat encounters (you get dropped into an arena, defeat an Oni (or several), teleport back). It's not bad, but it feels tedious, because most of the Oni were in the main story missions already. Also my tolerance for animu BS decreased since Toukiden Kiwami and I realized that making a village in the middle of nowhere the central hub was a terrible idea. I get that in post-apocalyptic setting you can't have many nice big cities, but Fallout had at least 1 per game.

 

For what it's worth, Toukiden 2 is better than Kiwami in many aspects (more open world, clearer main quest progression, more 2-phase large Oni, graphics). Expecting any improvements in terms of story or the quality of port (including English dub) would be too optimistic.

[Keyrock]

Pallegina and Maia have started bickering in my party. Good, goooooood. I hope they never set aside their differences and continue taking potshots at each other. :D

 

I also started playing Yakuza 0 again after a bit of a break. Intended to play it for a hour or so. 4 hours later... This game... I wish I could find every person that had a hand in making Yakuza 0 and give them a hug. There's a lot of negativity out there (and rightfully so) with AAA being hellbent on turning everything into a live service. Then I play a game like Yakuza 0 and I remember that there is still some good left in this world gone crazy.

Edited February 26, 2019 by Keyrock

[LittleArmadillo0]

I've been playing Yakuza 0 recently and it really is a breath of fresh air.

[Katphood]

Yup. Yakuza 0 was a blast to play and the last time I had that much fun was with -no, not you PoE- Fallout: New Vegas.

 

 

But guess what I am playing right now!

 

Gears of War 2

 

It's a pretty decent shooter. The campaign is longer than the first game and the narrative is much better.

[the_dog_days]

Finally finished Assassin's Creed Odyssey and I'm glad it's over. Not a bad game, but with 190 hours put into it, ACO is a perfect example of why I normally don't play open world games: my OCD kicks in and I've got to do everything. Good game. I'll never touch it again.

[GhostofAnakin]

Almost done all the content on the various islands in AC: Odyssey.  I still haven't gotten around to the main quest where I'm tracking down info on my mom.

 

I finally did that Daughters of Artemis quest where I'm supposed to kill that legendary boar.  Holy hell, that was HORRIBLE.  It took me forever to kill the thing because those swarm of little boars kept blindsiding me.  Gah.  I swore so much playing through that.

[alanschu]

Anthem

[IndiraLightfoot]

Almost done all the content on the various islands in AC: Odyssey.  I still haven't gotten around to the main quest where I'm tracking down info on my mom.

 

I finally did that Daughters of Artemis quest where I'm supposed to kill that legendary boar.  Holy hell, that was HORRIBLE.  It took me forever to kill the thing because those swarm of little boars kept blindsiding me.  Gah.  I swore so much playing through that.

Yeah, that's the worst of those epic beasts, for sure.

[Oner]

Anthem

He's alive! Aliiiiiive!

[Majek]

Anthem

No this is something i've never expected to see here again.

[Katphood]

Finished Gears 2.

 

It was...ok. Moving on to Gears 3...

 

 

...did they have to swap the locust with an enemy that looks and acts exactly the same?(the lambant)

 

 

I am enjoying it though, at this point it is giving me a Ghostbusters vibe. Pure comedy!

[ShadySands]

Still playing the waiting game for CK2+ to be updated for the Holy Fury.

[GhostofAnakin]

 

Almost done all the content on the various islands in AC: Odyssey.  I still haven't gotten around to the main quest where I'm tracking down info on my mom.

 

I finally did that Daughters of Artemis quest where I'm supposed to kill that legendary boar.  Holy hell, that was HORRIBLE.  It took me forever to kill the thing because those swarm of little boars kept blindsiding me.  Gah.  I swore so much playing through that.

Yeah, that's the worst of those epic beasts, for sure.

 

 

It didn't help that I have an assassin's build and most of my assassin skills weren't available to me.  For instance, I like to start most fights versus bosses/mercenaries with that spear throw take down move, but as soon as I came close to the boar it saw me and I couldn't use the sneak attack.

[Mamoulian War]

Pallegina and Maia have started bickering in my party. Good, goooooood. I hope they never set aside their differences and continue taking potshots at each other. :D

 

I also started playing Yakuza 0 again after a bit of a break. Intended to play it for a hour or so. 4 hours later... This game... I wish I could find every person that had a hand in making Yakuza 0 and give them a hug. There's a lot of negativity out there (and rightfully so) with AAA being hellbent on turning everything into a live service. Then I play a game like Yakuza 0 and I remember that there is still some good left in this world gone crazy.

 

That's fine, you can still hug all of us Yakuza fans here We share the same love for brilliant game design in these games

 

It will confort us while we wait for Y3,Y4 and Y5 to be remastered for the West

[Keyrock]

I just did a stealth mission to buy a porno mag in Yakuza 0. This game never ceases to amaze me.

[Hawke64]

Dark Souls: Remastered.

Reached Blighttown. FPS are stable, but it's still Blighttown.

[Fenixp]

Slowly going through Mars in Warframe. Additionally, I've managed to get myself to a level where the easiest bounty mission in Plains of Eidolon is just about doable, so I'm doing it, hoping for it to drop the Gara component - it does drop other rare resources as well so that's neat. Aaand working on the Archwing launcher to be able to ... Well ... Launch ... The Archwing into the plains for more mobility.

 

I've also done a few of the Archwing missions and ... Well, albeit I suppose it should not come as a surprise, the 6 degrees of freedom combat in Warframe is just not as good as the ground-based one, altho I definitely appreciate the mechs-with-swords-in-space thing. (turns out swords aren't that useful in spess combat, all things considered)

 

After finishing Hollow Knight, I also got in the mood for another metroidvania, so I'm going through Guacameele, which is really good. Not Hollow Knight levels of good, but it's a brawler with its own specifics and fun, unique twists on mechanics, so, y'know... That's fun.

[GhostofAnakin]

Played a bit of Anthem at my buddy's house today to see whether I'd actually be interested in picking it up.

 

Some thoughts:

-Ugh ... every mission is a public mission (that I played in).  What made it annoying is I felt rushed every single time because one person would jump ahead, so I'd have to keep up or get that error message of being transported back to my group.  So I never actually was able to take in the environments etc.

-We (my friend and I alternated) ended up playing about 5 missions.  I still have no idea what the story is about.  Like, I sort of do, but the missions just seem disjointed and there's not the cohesive story that Bio's usually known for.  This is more like a user made mod for like Destiny or something.

-Loading screens galore.  And being unable to change your load out anywhere but back at the Forge is stupid beyond belief.

 

Those three things alone make it unlikely I'll spring for the game myself.  Add to that the story seems flimsy at best (both from what I saw and from what I've read from others), so there's nothing that's drawing me in.

[Katphood]

Got myself the Dual Kamas in Warframe. It was pretty hard to pull off because you need to build yourself 2 seperate Kamas first and each of them need 5 Neural Sensors, something that is pretty rare to come by.

 

I keep using the Karak as my primary weapon because it just works so damn well.

Edited February 27, 2019 by Katphood

[Tale]

I'm almost done with Resident Evil 6! I've got one more level of Sherry and then Ada Wong's campaign.

 

I don't hate it! I don't like it! When I'm done with it, I'll immediately forget I ever played it!

 

This is the first Resident Evil game where I'm pretty sure I'll walk away having no idea what happened. Even the truly terrible ones were at least interesting.

[Saito Hikari]

Still going through Kingdoms of Amalur.

 

The game got a lot more interesting once I reached the Plains and the giant city there. It's much more visually interesting than the earlier forest areas. I notice the dungeons in the area got a lot shorter too. Not complaining though, if they were just as big as the early game dungeons, I'd have probably stepped away from the game for a time.

 

The gear/stat scaling is kinda broken as well. I think I'm only about 40-50% of the way through the game, but I'm already level 28. Apparently, the level cap in the game is 37. I also found it a bit awkward when the game suddenly started handing me what appears to be endgame tier potions when I barely started finding the mid-tier potions. The crafting system also seems to break the game in half if you invest in the crafting skills.

 

I do like how the game's out of combat skills actually do more than just make you better at detecting traps/dispelling wards/etc. I've noticed them unlock additional conversation options and even come into play during quests (like how Dispel became important for freeing the captured Fae from magical possession during the House of Ballads questline, when otherwise you're forced to kill them). It's a bit Pillars-esque.

 

A lot of guides mention that Persuasion actually isn't important because the persuasion options don't change outcomes much if you succeed. They're a bunch of liars. There's a fair amount of permanently missable stuff gated behind Persuasion options (and Dispel if you do House of Ballads without at least 4 points in that skill), while ignoring the other skills (particularly the crafting skills and Detect Hidden) just means that you get stronger/may need to backtrack later in the game. Of course, Persuasion is RNG-based and you could just savescum until the persuasion checks pass, but it's best to just save yourself the headache (especially in one case where I had to pass three checks in a row).

 

(It's important to note that there's skill trainers throughout the game that you can pay to permanently increase your skills, and it carries over when you Fateweave, as in skill reset. Thing is, the trainers also have minimum/maximum amount of points needed for them to train you in that skill. It seems a common tactic is to reset your skills, go visit the trainers that you haven't trained with because your skill level was too high before, and more efficiently re-allocate your skill points from there.)

 

It's still a fun game overall, balance issues otherwise.

Edited February 28, 2019 by Saito Hikari

[melkathi]

The DLCs are fun as well.

I think I deleted my character and made a new one when I realised that Dispel could have saved the fae in that quest

[Katphood]

Replaying Borderlands 2 DLC Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty with Zero. This is my 3rd play through.

 

My first playthrough was with The Mechromancer(PS3) and my second one was with Axton(PC). I believe I still have Axton if my save files on Steam are up to date so in case someone wants to co-op you know who to call, just keep in mind that I don't have a headset so cooperation is somewhat limited.