What Are You Playing Now: The New Beginning Thread

[Mamoulian War]

Yesterday, I've played more DS2 again. Had three boss encounters scheduled for the evening, and because I was afraid to venture again to Heide's Tower of Flame, I've decided to drop down to Majula's Pit and Saint's Grave and face the Royal Rat Vanguard. I was able to get him down on my first try So far the longest encounter.  Little bit over 3 minutes.

 

[Mamoulian War]

Just about hour ago, last and final trophy run of Journey on my PS4 is behind me. Last trophy popped up after 2 hours of matchmaking . In the final session I've met 3 more companions. 21st game at 100% in my PS collection

Edited August 12, 2020 by Mamoulian War

[LadyCrimson]

9 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Yesterday, I've played more DS2 again.
 

I don't remember Dungeon Siege 2 looking like... oh wait. 

[Sarex]

I don't know if Control is supposed to have horror elements, if it is they are not working very well. Also some character models are the epitome of uncanny valley.

[Humanoid]

The uncanny valley models are the horror element.

[Mamoulian War]

After Royal Rat Vanguard, I've decided to try out the Heide's Tower of Flame. Thankfully few of the mobs there were one time spawns so after first few difficulties fighting them, including few Red Phantoms, I was able to move through the level, activate all levers and the road was clear for both bossfights there. First in line was Old Dragonslayer. I completely messed up the first attempt, but the second one was successful Little bit over 1 and half minute long fight

 

[Malcador]

Got Planet Coaster as a birthday gift, so am playing that. First step is watching tutorial videos

[Humanoid]

It's a Cook, Serve, Delicious cook-off as I compare CSD2 to CSD3. Whose cuisine will reign supreme?

In one corner we have the 2017 title, which I am playing in single-player mode, courtesy of Oner. In the other corner, the technically-not-released-yet CSD3, which per an announcement just today is due to come out of Early Access in October. That one I will be playing in co-op via Steam Remote Play, as it is owned by my sister.

In terms of the core gameplay loop, CSD2 has you completing a full workday, from 7am to 10pm, in a restaurant in an office tower. Each day is mostly fairly sedate, but is broken up by two rush hour periods of heavy activity. CSD3 has you operate a Food Truck, where every day has you make a few scheduled stops, and between stops you have to deal with pre-orders while also ensuring you have enough food pre-prepared for the rush of customers at the next stop.

Overall, CSD3's system is significantly more fast-paced, but is counter-acted by having each day be considerably shorter overall. We're talking on the order of 20 minutes vs 10 minutes per level here. This is amplified by the removal of the "side dish" mechanic, which was essentially a mechanism to "stall" customers by making them significantly more patient if you have such dishes prepared. It feels a little gamey, in that somehow customers are somehow willing to wait twice as long for their burger if you also happen to have fries ready to serve, and three times as long if you also have salad ready, even though they will only ever buy one side (and will always buy a side if it's available).

CSD3 inverts the challenge by instead providing you a couple of new tools to deal with the otherwise overwhelming rushes: the aforementioned pre-order system letting you know which foods to focus on while in transit, and a robot assistant which can automatically serve any and all ready meals instantly, at the touch of a button. In short, you deal with rushes by being able to serve food items faster instead of you trying to buy more time.

Outside the actual levels themselves, CSD also feels a lot less grindy. In both games, completing each level gives you resources to buy more recipes and to upgrade your facilities, but CSD3's feels a fair bit more generous, and you are essentially never short of having enough cash to buy a complete new menu for the next level. In CSD2, completing a level might provide you with enough to buy one new dish on average. To be fair, a large part of the game involves being a chef-for-hire in other restaurants, where you earn a wage (and tips) while having no control over the menu, so the recipes you've learned for yourself are only relevant when working in your own restaurant.

Aside, true to American dining culture, just as much of your daily earnings, if not the majority of it, will come from tips. This makes it particularly aggravating when some foods, and indeed some entire levels, make you ineligible for tips. When this happens, you end up spending just as much time and effort on a level as on any other, but arbitrarily find your income halved, increasing the grindiness of the game even more. CSD3 dispenses with the tipping system altogether, fortunately. It's one of the perks of the complete collapse of society that is the game's backstory: the whole thing is set in a sort of post-apocalyptic Mad Max version of America.

 

Now to be fair, I've only played a few hours of each title at the moment, but at the moment I think the third game is the superior one, mainly for being more manageable in terms of time commitment. I feel a lot more comfortable finding a 10 minutes in my day or just before going to bed to play a short gaming session. And for the completionist players, of which I am not one, failing a perfect run near the end of a short CSD3 run feels a hell of a lot less infuriating than doing so at the end of a 20 minute slog.

 

TL;DR: Feel free to just skip straight to the third instalment.

[Mamoulian War]

The next in line was Dragonrider. Just for fun, I've decided to summon one NPC phantom to see how the fight will get easy. And it got First try just little bit under one and half minute on first try

 

 

[Humanoid]

Remember how I complained two posts ago that the days in CSD2 really dragged on? Turns out that it's because the game engine, like many poorly-written DOS games of yesteryear, can only measure time by the amount of frames that have been displayed. Well, I have been exclusively playing this game on my Celeron NUC...

The short of it is that the game is probably running at half of the maximum capped frame rate of 60fps - probably even less most of the time - and as a result each level ends up at least twice as long.

[evilcat]

Little Big Workshop,  manage factory of cute gnomes game. Generally fun, it is not saturated genre so far. Unfortunetly controls are clunky at times (simple action takes too long).

[Sarex]

Still playing Control. I don't know, the game isn't really impressing me, but it's keeping my interest and attention. It has it's moments, I guess the ending will let me decide where I stand on it.

[Mamoulian War]

Because of some changes in this NG+, I've decided to go into Huntsman's Copse as a next area, instead of going to Flexile Sentry, even though I've cleared whole No Man's Wharf. The hardest thing was to get to the boss arena. FROM decided to put two crazy big butchers on one of the smallest ledges areas in the area, and they most of the time kicked my ass, while trying to get there Still the death count is much much lower then in my blind playthrough. Still some NG+ exclusive enemies can surprise me enough to almost **** my pants sometime

Anyway, the Skeleton Lords, even though in little bit slowpaced fight (so far my longest in NG+) were defeated on the first try (little bit under 5 minutes )

 

[Malcador]

Elven Treachery is one hard level in Majesty, sort of weird as it is that way as it's the level unlocked after doing the beginner runs.  Tried Paladin spam, but fell short of the goal - will try making money to pay them off and not push Paladins so hard - was fun to watch 12 of them wreck a bunch of elves.

[the_dog_days]

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

Elven Treachery is one hard level in Majesty

It's also the shirt I wear when playing Shadowrun.

[bugarup]

"Mars: War Chronicles", the eurojankpunk RPG. Love the environments and the science fiction'ish setting, combat is that eurojank's typical "roll-roll-roll-roll-smack" loop that I am never going to love, but I'm slowly getting accustomed to it, so if all goes well  the day is nigh when I can finally go farther than the tutorial in "Witcher 2"

[Keyrock]

2 hours ago, bugarup said:

"Mars: War Chronicles", the eurojankpunk RPG.

As a eurojank RPG connoisseur, I have fond memories of this one. Make sure you romance someone. Believe me, it's something to behold; even Bioware RPGs get a chuckle out of the sex scenes. There's a sequel called Technomancer if you are craving more eurojank. Also, I wholeheartedly recommend Bound By Flame from the same developer. The level of edgelord in that game is EPIC, especially if you embrace the demon.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Keyrock

[Mamoulian War]

After a year and a half, I’ve decided to make another Assetto Corsa Special Event. And it has shown me how rusty I am  I’ve spent 2 hours in BMW Z4 GT3 on Imola, driving, chnaging setups and learning how to properly drive through Tamburello and Acque Minerali turns, without losing to much time  in the end, I’ve beaten the Gold medal requirement by 0.590 seconds. Still 2 seconds slower than the average Aliens  

Edited August 17, 2020 by Mamoulian War

[Malcador]

Excellent Paladin spam worked the second time around, granted with 2 days from the limit. 

[marelooke]

The Nier inspired raids in FF XIV have triggered a desire to finally finish Nier: Automata.

Given how the game ate my savegame last time I think I'll look into how I can back that up automatically, kinda don't want to go through that again (and now, it wasn't the "expected" savegame delete)

As for the raids, well, fighting robots alongside 2B, and a bunch of crazy dwarves. Could be worse as a set-up

[bugarup]

3 hours ago, Keyrock said:

As a eurojank RPG connoisseur, I have fond memories of this one. Make sure you romance someone. Believe me, it's something to behold; even Bioware RPGs get a chuckle out of the sex scenes. There's a sequel called Technomancer if you are craving more eurojank. Also, I wholeheartedly recommend Bound By Flame from the same developer. The level of edgelord in that game is EPIC, especially if you embrace the demon.

Technomancer is next in line, I bought both of them after Greedfall by the same devs, but I somehow overlooked Bound By Flame, will rectify that on the next sale on GOG.

 

[Keyrock]

I still need to play Greedfall. The fact that a eurojank RPG has been out for this long and I haven't played it yet brings me shame. 

[Theonlygarby]

Just started Trails in the sky...  Really enjoying it, combat is pretty basic but it has that Japanese charm I've been looking for.  Hopefully I'll finish the first game by the time wasteland 3 comes out. 

 

I also bought UFC 4 and regretted it immediately...  Stupid EA having all the rights to sports games

Edited August 17, 2020 by Theonlygarby

[Mamoulian War]

And after Skeleton Lords, I went this time directly to Covetous Demon. Well not directly, just with few stupid mistakes, but the travel was much smoother than the NG+ version of Huntsman's Copse. I have to admit, that due to my stupid mistake, I needed 2 tries to beat him this time n00b mamou FTL
 

 

[Skazz]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Excellent Paladin spam worked the second time around, granted with 2 days from the limit. 

You're welcome