What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[Tale]

The Room Two

In this surprising sequel to the film, Johnny must solve puzzle boxes to find Mark inside an eldritch nightmare.

But seriously, these are fun games. I binged through the first one last night. They're puzzle boxes with fairly simple logic. Ones that couldn't exist in the real world for a few reasons. And at like $1.50 in the sale, much cheaper than even a single box.

[Rubarbarian]

Half-Life 2. Much better than any modern 3D shooter (DOOM, COD or any other victim of console gameplay) still.

[Keyrock]

I've reached chapter 6 of Judgment. As I've stated before, this is a Yakuza game in everything except name. It plays just like a Yakuza game, but there are some new gameplay elements. Some reviewers didn't like some of these new gameplay elements, on the grounds of them being tedious, and I can see where they are coming from. I'm into them because I'm one of those rare weirdos that enjoys slowly tailing a suspect while remaining unnoticed (think: every AssCreed game), pixel hunting a scene for evidence, and carefully considering which piece of evidence to present to prove my point. My biggest complaint is that these gameplay elements, so far at least, seem to be way too easy. Also, there seems to be no fail state or punishment for selecting wrong dialogue choices, outside of possibly losing a few SP which you can easily make up for with about 20 seconds of kicking the **** out of mooks on the street. Still, I appreciate Ryo Ga Gotoku attempting to add crime solving elements into the game, I just hope they make them a bit more in-depth and more difficult/punishing in future Judgment titles (we better get sequels!), Even if the gameplay sucked, I'd still gladly play this for the story alone. Developers should be made to play Yakuza games as a lesson in how to properly tell a story. It's almost not fair how good these guys are at that aspect of game design. To say that I'm invested would be putting it lightly, I'm on the edge of my seat and chomping at the bit to find out what happens next, all while formulating my own theories.

[Hawke64]

The Surge, "A Walk in the Park"

Defeated the Carbon Cat as Iron Maus. The implants available in the DLC made the battle significantly easier - I could tank several hits in the second phase, while normally most bosses could 1-shoot me. The DLC itself is much more colorful (literally, it's an amusement park, and metaphorically, as there are sane and alive people around), than the original game. I was overlevelled for the first half, but the second half was on par with the area I was going through in the main game. And there was some lore about CREO and the MC's background. The latter was interesting, but I prefer silent story-free avatars, if I can't customize them. The former was rather surprising as I hadn't progressed that far in the main game.

Spoiler

I did not expect semi-sentient nano-machines, as everything before pointed at cyborgs + some sort of toxin to restore (?) the atmosphere (??). But I've just run into my first nanite zombie (?), so it seems possible.

 

Edited June 29, 2019 by Hawke64

[melkathi]

Finished Spellforce 3: Soul Harvest.

The German translation was not up to the standard I had come to expect. And far too often English text showed up. So as a German player the experience was marred by a rushed localisation. The ending was interesting, though the "boss fight" was tedious. The game could have been a great experience, if it weren't for too many little things that hurt the enjoyment. Maybe it would have been more fun in English and when not having invested 70+ hours into Spellforce 3 and thus being used to the UI from that. By the time I had gotten used to the new way of doing things, the expansion was over. And I still believe the change wasn't for the better.

[Raithe]

Took the plunge and pikced up Kingdom Come: Deliverance in the sales and puttering around on it.

Bouncing between enjoyment and frustration. Lots of things to like, but slow start and some really annoying walls to bounce against and try to get to grips with.

[wolfrider100]

Just started up a new play-through of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition with the Siege of Dragonspear expansion installed. Man I have not played Baldur's Gate 1 (original) since I beat it in late 1990/2000. I want to play it again since I found out Baldur's Gate 3's finally going to became a thing now (finally real). I'm running a pure fighter build ; with a 18/96 in strength, 18 in dexterity and constitution, then 17 in charisma. Intelligence and wisdom are both left at 8. After re-rolling my abilities for what seemed like a hour, this was the best I could come up with. I was trying for a 18/00 in strength (rare), but I'm still pretty happy with this. I also picked long sword, plus sword and shield for my starting skills. I still can't believe I wasted 53 cent on the Faces of Good and Evil portrait pack, since I also found a few good custom male human and dwarf portraits online right after (was about 4 portraits, I think). It's not all bad since I now have a couple more options to pick from.

Edited June 30, 2019 by wolfrider100

[Zoraptor]

7 hours ago, Raithe said:

Took the plunge and pikced up Kingdom Come: Deliverance in the sales and puttering around on it.

Bouncing between enjoyment and frustration. Lots of things to like, but slow start and some really annoying walls to bounce against and try to get to grips with.

It is a bit of a frustrating game at times- in much the same way as a Piranha Bytes title you will spend a fair bit of early game time running away and being mildly peeved at the interface and controls- but if your idea of an RPG is riding around on a horse killing stuff you can't get much better with a bit of perseverance.

[Chilloutman]

1 hour ago, wolfrider100 said:

Just started up a new play-through of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition with the Siege of Dragonspear expansion installed. Man I have not played Baldur's Gate 1 (original) since I beat it in late 1990/2000. I want to play it again since I found out Baldur's Gate 3's finally going to became a thing now (finally real). I'm running a pure fighter build ; with a 18/96 in strength, 18 in dexterity and constitution, then 17 in charisma. Intelligence and wisdom are both left at 8. After re-rolling my abilities for what seemed like a hour, this was the best I could come up with. I was trying for a 18/00 in strength (rare), but I'm still pretty happy with this. I also picked long sword, plus sword and shield for my starting skills. I still can't believe I wasted 53 cent on the Faces of Good and Evil portrait pack, since I also found a few good custom male human and dwarf portraits online right after (was about 4 portraits, I think). It's not all bad since I now have a couple more options to pick from.

 

Dont bother ever trying to get 18/00. It will took you like 2 hours to get it to 19 anyway

[Hawke64]

The Surge
Completed the game, despite frequent crashes in the last area and its boss battle. "Nanite Mass uses Crash to the Desktop".

[ktchong]

2 hours ago, wolfrider100 said:

Just started up a new play-through of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition with the Siege of Dragonspear expansion installed...

Ha!  Me too!

I've actually recovered my old saves (playing as a Cavalier) since posting that question in Reddit, so most likely I will pick up from where I left off.

Edited June 30, 2019 by ktchong

[Malcador]

Tried another game of EU4, unfortunately several patches have come so I've less idea of what I'm doing than before.  Should be fun to fail at least.

[wolfrider100]

8 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

 

Dont bother ever trying to get 18/00. It will took you like 2 hours to get it to 19 anyway

Yeah I know, I'm grabbing the Manual of Gainful Exercise next. Well that's my plan anyways. 

Edited July 1, 2019 by wolfrider100

[bugarup]

I'm alternating between TSL and SWTOR. TSL is as good as ever (although apparently I've grown intolerant to smug sense of superiority and excess whinge since I played last so cannot wait to wipe out those b...roads of Atris and how comes I never noticed before how whiny Atton was?), but Nar Shaddaa level is so, so ugly. Abysmally ugly. Like, Morrowind levels of ugly. Maybe uglier, just more concentrated ugly rather than stretched out. So I popped into SWTOR's colourful Nar Shaddaa for some palate cleansing, and lo behold, there is casino event going on this month, and so after succumbing to my gambling addiction for something like couple of hours in total I ended up with nice assorted collection of goodies and currencies to buy other goodies. 

[kanisatha]

Having just completed the base game of Witcher 3, I started playing the first expansion, but so far am not enjoying it much. I want to be clear it isn't anything about the quality of the expansion, which is excellent. It's just that there isn't a compelling "big" story to keep me engaged and wanting to play on. But most of all it is that combat (which was always a pain) has become utter drudgery. They're all just long-winded slug-fests against foes that are immune to everything and have like a million health. Don't think I'll be finishing even the first expansion let along getting into the second one.

[Keyrock]

I started up La-Mulana 2. As a big fan of the first game, I came into this with very high expectations and it's living up to them so far. For those unfamiliar, La-Mulana is a cult classic 2D side-scrolling metroidvania. It made its name by being ruthlessly hard. The difficulty doesn't just come from difficult battles or platforming, though there is some of that too (not I Wanna Be the Boshy difficult, mind you). Much of the difficulty and fun or frustration, depending on your patience and puzzle solving skills, comes from the fact that, unlike a lot of other metroidvanaias, the way to proceed is often unclear. In many other metroidvanias it's pretty standard to come to a ledge that's too high to jump to and quickly deduce that you need an item that will make you jump higher, or come to a blue locked door and deduce that you need a blue key or a weapon that shoots a blue beam. In La-Mulana, there are hints on how and where to progress, but they often take the form of cryptic riddles and it's up to you to 1) find said riddles 2) figure out what said riddles mean and which part of the giant labyrinth they pertain to 3) figure out how to obtain whatever item you may need to satisfy the solution to said riddles. All the while you fight monsters, dodge dastardly traps, and piece together a story of ancient civilizations and...

La-Mulana 2 is more of that, except this time you play as the daughter of the main character in the first game, who was, for all intents and purposes, Indiana Jones.

Anyway, I'm a couple hours into the game. I've beaten several smaller bosses and one guardian so far. The guardian fight was surprisingly easy, I beat it first try, while I died several times before defeating the other bosses. This new area I just reached, a sort of fire and ice area (maybe Nigoro is a George RR Martin fan?) introduces the wonderful insta-kill goodness of lava and, just in case lava didn't suck enough on its own, poison lava. 

[HoonDing]

Shang dies in Mulan 2.

[majestic]

Started up FTL and noticed that my original save game seems to have been lost. The cloud one is missing my completed Crystal Cruiser quest. Oh well, it's only the most random and annoying thing to do in the game, might as well try to get it again for another 50 hours or so. It's time well (eh, entertainingly?) spent anyway.

Edited July 3, 2019 by majestic

[Hurlshort]

Conan Exiles got its hooks in me.

[melkathi]

And another one gone.

[Keyrock]

[ShadySands]

I've burned myself out on the 3 MMOs I cycle through and I'm still stuck using a broken down laptop so I fired up CK2 and spent too much time trying to get to a point where my immortal* Atenic Egyptian martial dude can kick out the Muslims and return Egypt to the worship of the one true god. Still seems a long, long way off.

*I give my guys immortality at the cost of their fertility. They can't produce heirs but can live until the end of the game if they play their cards right and get a little lucky.

[Mamoulian War]

Played Assetto Corsa today for more than 2 hours after a looong break. I am in middle of GT2X Championship, and as a next in line was Mugello track. This track is for me more challenging than Nordschleife and very hard to drive it without errors. And the race was 30 laps long  Thankfully the setup provided by the game for this race was pretty solid so after 3 completely botched races, I was able to finish it on 4th try with only one hickup. Still after slowly moving forward to first place, I had to defend my position almost until the very last lap of the race.

If anyone is interested, you can find my race against Medium AI here:

 

 

[HoonDing]

Age of Conan was good until  you left the starter island

Edited July 5, 2019 by HoonDing

[melkathi]

That sounds so Funcom...

Secret World was good until you had to put up with the gameplay.