What Are You Playing Now: The meaning of life

[Gorth]

9 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Borderlands 3 decided to do a second "season pass", of which it sounds like there will be two DLC? The first one adds a new skill tree to each vault hunter and a new play mode where you can't use your farmed gear or something (I hear it's tough, but very short).  For $15 stand alone. Pass is $30 which makes me wonder if the 2nd will also be $15, or even $20.    Think I'll skip for now.

...I still haven't played the first 4 DLC, haha. 

...and the only thing I've really been playing is mobile-slots again, while watching TV.  'Cause I'm a "grandma" now or something.

I really regret buying Borderlands 3, even at half price. Didn't get any of the DLC. The new season pass is for 3 DLC's that all got slammed by reviewers (just reskins for characters at like $15 each). Still having a lot of fun with Borderlands 2 though. Trying to get from OP2 to OP3 on my siren. Nice and challenging.

 

Reinstalled X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter (from GOG). Dusted off my old Saitek X52 flight stick and had a lot of fun yesterday getting to learn the basics in a Z-95 again

 

Edit: Jeebus the quoting and formatting in this board software is irritating. Old thread:

 

[Chairchucker]

Just beat Covenant 25 on Monster Train, which I'm sure means nothing to most of you, but I was p. happy with.

[Mamoulian War]

And, the last boss before picking up my DS2 Platinum Trophy was Last Sinner.

Well she was not planned as last one, but after owning my ass few times, I've decided to skip her for now. Unfortunately, when you decide to skip the Ruin Sentinels, you are not able to light the oil braziers in the boss arena, so, I had to fight her in darkness... The worst encounter so far was successful on 2nd try. Not this one... Counting all the attempts, including the first attempts in the middle of the game, I ended up finishing her on my 23rd attempt... The key of the encounter is to have always as much health as possible, and always focus on the boss, not the adds!!! I had to die 10 times before I stopped being stubborn and shoot all my spells at the boss instead of them... Anyway, the final successful attempt can be watched bellow

 

 

[Malcador]

Finished off Deponia 2.  Same trick with the ending like the first, in a way with a surprise remote/cartridge.  Wasn't too bad.  Now to finish the third one, probably should grab Doomsday as well to just complete this. 

[LadyCrimson]

Watching Lirik twitch stream Godfall. Looks an ok action loot game, even if melee isn't really my thing. Certainly has nice textures/visuals/effects, although the graphical style is nothing special. But it's another always-online/PS+ sub/even single-player.  So sadly I won't ever buy it to check it out myself.

That was one seeming trend about PS5 that I noticed earlier, that makes it more likely I'll wait a long time before getting one - more games with a SP mode still needing PS-Plus just to play.  You can cite anti-cheat tactic but one could at least separate SP and MP saves for that reason. Or just make it MP only so no one expects offline ability.

Edited November 11, 2020 by LadyCrimson

[Keyrock]

53 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

Watching Lirik twitch stream Godfall.

Is he using the 12 GB VRAM SUPERMEGAULTRAHYPERUBERTEXTURES? Because if not, what's the point? Might as well play a 8-bit retro graphics game. 

[LadyCrimson]

23 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

Is he using the 12 GB VRAM SUPERMEGAULTRAHYPERUBERTEXTURES? Because if not, what's the point? Might as well play a 8-bit retro graphics game. 

Hehe

I think he's using two sli 2080ti's on a 1440 screen. Dunno if he's all-Ultra but I'd say he probably is at least using ultra textures tho - getting 60-80fps average range maybe (he has a counter on the game).
The textures and view distance is the main reason the game looks "nicer", mostly. Some particle/light effects. Not having blurry distant objects, everything looking in focus gives a sense of more/hyper-clarity. use of light/contrast seems pretty nice too. Otherwise color palette and environment it sorta reminds me of many other games.  Gameplay looks a bit repetitive too, but if lots of combat is you're thing etc.

[melkathi]

Age of Wonders: Planetfall has actually become a lot better with the latest update(s). AI  is more aggressive, meaning they will actually attack when declaring war.

Building a galactic empire by playing skirmish games is what I had always wanted from this game. Every new game you get a choice of randomly generated planets to expand to, with some faction side quests for extra renown.

I'm on my second planet. It was in the path of the Voidbringer invasion, so we are now fighting those. Sadly one of my allies decided to side with them, which made for a strange war, as our empires had a long border due to the war with the other alliance. Guess the game had to balance it, so made the strongest AI join the opposition.

Edited November 12, 2020 by melkathi

[Gorth]

Still practicing those old X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter skills.

 

Looking through my game library, I decided to start from the opposite end. Good thing too. Having a blast playing Xenonauts. Finally getting to scratch that old X-Com itch (with game I actually seem to like as opposed to those horrible things from Firaxis Games)

[Hurlshort]

7 hours ago, Gorth said:

Still practicing those old X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter skills.

 

Looking through my game library, I decided to start from the opposite end. Good thing too. Having a blast playing Xenonauts. Finally getting to scratch that old X-Com itch (with game I actually seem to like as opposed to those horrible things from Firaxis Games)

Xenonauts 2 is coming out soon. By soon I mean 2021ish, but I've been following the development and it looks like solid sequel. Early Access will come out around January.

[Mamoulian War]

I loved Xenonauts as well, enjoyed it as much as I remember enjoying the old MicroProse titles Xenonauts 2 is on my wishlist from day 1 it was announced on GOG

[majestic]

I unlocked the Gunslinger in Enter The Gungeon. Whilst I still have a few items that are not yet unlocked I'll consider that game finished for the time being, and since the Epic version has no achievements I cannot enlargen my e-**** by continuing to play. Achievements might not be content but for me they can give me some decent extra value in a game.

All in all not too shabby. For the first 50 or so runs I never thought I'd beat it even once, let alone unlock all characters and kill their pasts. Now... now losing a run only happens when I stop paying attention. It does have - like any rougelite - a decent chunk of RNG, but it's not nearly as bad as other games. Good luck can still get you a loaded run, but bad luck won't give you an unwinnable one like, say, FTL does.

Great game, well worth the nothing I spent on it. Doubly so when it makes Epic give the studio the money for a copy sold.

[Keyrock]

I had my first full on encounter with the monster in Amnesia: Rebirth. I got to hear the monster here and there earlier, then caught a couple quick glimpses, but Frictional held off on the full reveal until a few hours into the game, which is smart. Honestly, they might have been better served holding off the full reveal even longer. Once you reveal the monster fully, it's only a matter of a handful of encounters before you become desensitized and the monster is no longer a source of tension but merely an obstacle. Games like Resident Evil get around this, to some degree, by having multiple monster types, that way they can keep throwing something new at you. I'm assuming Amnesia: Rebirth only has 1 monster, though I can't say that for sure.

As an aside, I am kinda curious what happens if I allow myself to succumb to the fear/madness (don't tell me). So far I've not allowed myself to lose control, but I may do an experiment and just let all my sanity drain away. Maybe I'll hold off on said experiment for a bit in case it turns out you can't actually completely lose control, since that will kinda kill the tension once I am armed with that knowledge.

[ComradeYellow]

Still locked into Death Stranding.  I'm definitely one of the players that likes it (it got mixed reviews upon release, half didn't care for it half loved it).  Road building and consistent deliveries is my forte.  I'm quite the constructionist/courier dual class.

I love how this game is like 50% survival horror and 50% satire -the game is absolutely riddled with social media algorithms/features- and seems to mock the whole "fetch quest" criticisms because it is probably the classiest "fetch quest" game there is.

'Like' my built roads, baby.

[Malcador]

Almost done Goodbye Deponia.  Still not finding this funny, and the protagonist is still an **** I'd like to watch a 15 minute cutscene of him being tortured to death. But at least some characters tell him off.

[Humanoid]

After watching Mandalore's breakdown of Mystery of the Droods, it seems probable that having a supreme jerkface adventure game protagonist is an iconic German thing.

[Chairchucker]

6 hours ago, Malcador said:

Almost done Goodbye Deponia.  Still not finding this funny, and the protagonist is still an **** I'd like to watch a 15 minute cutscene of him being tortured to death. But at least some characters tell him off.

If you want a point and click adventure with a more likeable protagonist, you should consider Nelly Cootalot and the Fowl Fleet.

[Malcador]

Finished it off. Not a bad game and I like the ending in that Rufus is denied his objective.  Puzzles were not too bad, I am very bad at the multiple protagonist idea so that part gave me fits. So didn't hate the game, didn't enjoy it.  Maybe I have no sense of humour

 

Mandalore's review of Mystery of Druids got me to waste 2 bucks on it, so will give that a go. Or maybe Deponia Doomsday.

[Gorth]

I learnt two important lessons in Xenonauts yesterday, both related to trees. 1) Money doesn't grow on trees and 2) hand grenades are unsuited for forest warfare (after wiping out half my squad with hand grenades that hit trees and didn't go anywhere)

 

[Malcador]

10 hours ago, Malcador said:

Mandalore's review of Mystery of Druids got me to waste 2 bucks on it, so will give that a go

This was not a wise idea. 

[HoonDing]

Is that the game where you cook up some pure alcohol in the police lab so you can drive a beggar drunk and steal his money to make a phone call?

[Humanoid]

Drunk is putting it mildly. You poison him with industrial alcohol, which realistically would kill him.

He also stabs his girlfriend and engages in casual cannibalism, so yeah.

[Raithe]

Wrapped up the campaign on Watchdogs Legion.

It's a weird one to evaluate. The concept of "recruit anyone you meet and use them" rather than a central character to play is interesting, but I think falls down in some ways. "Anyone" is basically a cosmetic thing, a random voice, a style of clothing, and a couple of skills - most of those skills have no relevance on your actual game play. What it also means is that the games story has to convey everything without any real connection to the character you are playing.

Which on story elements, I wasn't pulled in that deep on the majority of it. They've divided it into a series of chunks of 3-5 missions that convey an arc. These arcs have small things connecting them together (beyond the "they're screwing over the people of London and we have to stop them" in some way), which once you've completed all these arcs build to the grand finale. It's a bit loose and shallow, but then its countered by having a few key story points have a hefty emotional punch to them.

Visually it's impressive, and mechanically there's some nice level design to a few of the missions. I just kept waiting for the wow factor to hit in somewhere and it never did. The hacking feels a bit lackluster compared to the previous games as well, with rather bleh skill progression/development which added to the lack of oomph.

It's an interesting game in its attempt, and if you like open world with some philosophising on the nature of security, privacy, the IoT, facism, and media control, I'd say wait for the sales time to pick it up. But not one that's going to sink it's teeth into you.

I can see myself replaying Watchdogs 2 more than returning to WD: Legion in the future.

[bugarup]

On 11/14/2020 at 10:37 AM, Humanoid said:

After watching Mandalore's breakdown of Mystery of the Droods, it seems probable that having a supreme jerkface adventure game protagonist is an iconic German thing.

Edna from "Edna & Harvey" was a very nice girl. Anyway, I tried "Thimbleweed park" recently and understood I'm too old to put up with adventure game's patent "Try everything with everything" bullsh†t. Their devs could at least offer some commentary for like trying to use lipstick on an old shoe, but so far only aforesaid Edna & Harvey first game had something to say for every possible combination.

Playing "Outer wolds" now and loving everything so far, though I'd complain it's way, waaaaaay too much loot in this game, to the point I feel like OCD serial cleaner.
 

[Hawke64]

Trials of Mana. I've completed the demo. It was 2-hour-long and included prologues for the playable characters and the 1st chapter. The controls were rebindable and comfortable and it was possible to use mouse for camera movement. Graphically, the game was fine - animations were a bit stiff, most side characters looked exactly the same, but the cartoon-like style fit the narrative and was easy to read.
The story, while generic, at least manages to explain why any of the PC would bother with the main quest at all. I chose Hawkeye, the thief, whose goal was to remove a curse from his friend and save his people. To do so, he needed the Sword of Mana, which was a part of the main story. It seemed that the story was pretty linear - no dialogue choices, only non-interactive cut-scenes.
The combat was rather simple and easy, but it might be because of the characters having too low levels. There was some variety in terms of stats and abilities, but equipment progression seemed linear - one weapon and armor type per character.
OST and VA were adequate - I did not turn them off, but was not listening much either.

---
Resolutiion is an action/Metroidvania. The controls are rebindable and the combat is satisfying. The visual design (pixel art) is consistent, the soundtrack is good, though none of the tracks has lyrics. The dystopian cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic setting is interesting to explore. The bosses, while few, are diverse and reasonably challenging, though some of them may be too easy, depending on the acquired upgrades, which are found through out the world.