What Are You Playing Now: The meaning of life

[BruceVC]

15 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Alternating between Tales of Zestiria DLC, Shadowrun HongKong Bonus Campaign and Assetto Corsa community racing

Mamie !!!! Why arent you playing any DS.....what is wrong ?

[Malcador]

Odd logic for this puzzle in Secret Files 2, but not sure how I was to figure out I was supposed to drop a candle on some Italian dude's Ferrari which would make him miss a minibus with his friends zipping by which would then splash some lazy French street cleaner. 

[ComradeYellow]

Snowrunner.

I'm a mothertrucker now.

It's actually a neat little game, too bad most of the upgrades are locked up at low level -I keep getting stuck in the mud-, and trying to find road only missions with not heavly sludge can be a pain.

Other than that it's quite fun to simulate a truck driver.

[kanisatha]

On 1/7/2021 at 3:50 AM, BruceVC said:

Isnt it an interesting type of thought pattern us gamers seem to demonstrate at times when we feel almost guilty about dropping the difficulty level of games 

Not me!! I freely lower the difficulty level, sometimes for the whole game, and have no ego invested in trying to deny it or hide it.

My RL is complicated, challenging, and often not fun at all. My video games are my escape and liberation from my RL. As such, I don't need frustration or aggravation in my games, and challenge only to the extent it is fun for me.

[BruceVC]

19 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Not me!! I freely lower the difficulty level, sometimes for the whole game, and have no ego invested in trying to deny it or hide it.

My RL is complicated, challenging, and often not fun at all. My video games are my escape and liberation from my RL. As such, I don't need frustration or aggravation in my games, and challenge only to the extent it is fun for me.

What I meant to add is this happens to me when I play any game but I always use the Default setting. So this is the recommended setting 

You must know what that always means....rule 3249 of the hardcore game ideology guide : You cannot under any circumstances reduce the Default setting, you may raise it only 

And of course you right, it must be for fun....but thats a cliché and should be obvious because you come across as a gamer who has not forgotten its all suppose to be about fun....but 

Its much more fun than that and we tend to embrace other things like 

You ended making a choice to sponsor Bard Tale 4, you contributed towards the vision and InXile created a worthy legacy to the classic series. Did you end up playing the original series so you wanted to support this new version. 

When are planning on giving Bard Tale 4  go, are you good at puzzles or do you have the patience ?

And you have never given up on Bioware, it matters because I understand the fact many of our gaming collogues  decided to make a decision to not support them anymore because the game design has deviated so much I think. And yes Bioware games did change and they made a real effort to include Romance which I felt always get unnecessary criticism around how intrusive it is

But it is optional and that is the main thing. You really can have  a good gaming experience with their games but its different from older games. But very rarely  I get angry and stop playing a game and immediately and this happens only with RTS, you know when you playing a fantasy RTS like HM&M and suddenly the AI starts cheating and you cannot win any battle !!!

So if the AI starts cheating you cannot allow it be disrespectful...so you immediately delete it from your PC and that teaches the RTS a  lesson 

   

 

 

[kanisatha]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

What I meant to add is this happens to me when I play any game but I always use the Default setting. So this is the recommended setting 

You must know what that always means....rule 3249 of the hardcore game ideology guide : You cannot under any circumstances reduce the Default setting, you may raise it only 

And of course you right, it must be for fun....but thats a cliché and should be obvious because you come across as a gamer who has not forgotten its all suppose to be about fun....but 

Its much more fun than that and we tend to embrace other things like 

You ended making a choice to sponsor Bard Tale 4, you contributed towards the vision and InXile created a worthy legacy to the classic series. Did you end up playing the original series so you wanted to support this new version. 

When are planning on giving Bard Tale 4  go, are you good at puzzles or do you have the patience ?

And you have never given up on Bioware, it matters because I understand the fact many of our gaming collogues  decided to make a decision to not support them anymore because the game design has deviated so much I think. And yes Bioware games did change and they made a real effort to include Romance which I felt always get unnecessary criticism around how intrusive it is

But it is optional and that is the main thing. You really can have  a good gaming experience with their games but its different from older games. But very rarely  I get angry and stop playing a game and immediately and this happens only with RTS, you know when you playing a fantasy RTS like HM&M and suddenly the AI starts cheating and you cannot win any battle !!!

So if the AI starts cheating you cannot allow it be disrespectful...so you immediately delete it from your PC and that teaches the RTS a  lesson 

Hey I completely agree with you. Even your first post I agreed with, but also thought it was funny.

Yeah I backed BT4 only as a way of supporting inXile given it was at a time when we were not getting any old-school cRPGs, and the few remaining studios making such games were looking like they may go under. I had never even heard of the original BT games. Backing BT4 meant I got the BT1-3 remasters for free. I have them loaded on my machine, but don't know if I will ever get around to playing them. But I will definitely play BT4 at some point. I currently have a good-sized backlog of games to play in the face of not much time outside of my RL to play games. And yes, I have not yet given up on Bioware. I tend to be that way generally; unwilling to give up on something I once loved. I never gave up on Black Isle until the bitter end.

[BruceVC]

I decided to play the fantasy RPG Inquisitor again 

I played it once a while ago and got frustrated and removed it but I am going to give it a  go again. I did enjoy the brutal narrative the first time so I must get use to the gaming  mechanics and lets see if I can complete it this time 

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by BruceVC

[Malcador]

Almost done Secret Files 2, really hate playing as Max - not sure why, must be the voice acting or the puzzles in his sections.  So far it's about on par with the first game.  Definitely worth $2.

[Keyrock]

I'm on chapter 12 in my NG+ run of Y:LaD, this is where you reach Sotenbori and, more importantly, the battle arena, which is far and away the best place to grind in the game. Purely for money purposes, the management mini-game is the fastest way to get rich in the game, but the battle arena gives out the most exp, you get high-end crafting components, and you make a good chunk of change to boot. Once I get everyone to rank 40 in every job (I won't lie, this will take a while), I can blitz through the rest of the game in a sitting, two tops, and be well prepared for Legend difficulty.

As an aside, one of these days I really need to take the time to learn some of the asian gambling games. There is a metric ****ton of them in all the Yakuza games and I'm completely clueless when it comes to them.

[Mamoulian War]

Aaaaaand first game in 13th month of 2020 finished

Second playthrough of Tales of Zestiria – The Strength of a Knight DLC on my PS4. Pretty quick run this time. Just went for all of the treasure chest, remaining trophies and some fusing and Lord of the Land Blessing upgrades.

[marelooke]

Finished my first playthrough of Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story, which took me about 5.6 hours, according to Steam. The game has been quite enjoyable so far.

Despite the store page claiming no autosave etc. there was autosave and even quicksave, at least on default settings. Presumably added after release. And thankfully so, as I feel the Resident Evil (1) inspired save system would have been mostly annoying given the relatively slow pace.

The story ramp up pretty slowly during the first playthrough, but the game is designed to need three playthroughs to get to the "real" ending, so should be interesting where things go.

[Malcador]

Secret Files developers have a decent sense of humour, finished the second.  Third is going to be a drag, but I endured Dreamfall Chapters, so can handle any POS

[bugarup]

I'm playing "Regalia", kind of turn-based RPG with resource management about a group of blonde anime people who wanted to reclaim their ancestral home and got slapped with astronomical debt of their ancestors instead. It's really well-written if not too original and Larian could learn a thing or two about how to write comedy that's not just lolrandom llama cheese wacky antics. I'm also v. much appreciative of Polish gamemakers' tendency to make their RPG protagonists not very bright but self-aware (and get zero respect from the world ), this approach is way more interesting than usual Hero McPowerfantasy whom everyone reveres just for existing. 

Combat's a bit slow but fun in this rock-paper-scissory way when you curb stomp with correct party setup and struggle otherwise, but there's time limit and you don't know what awaits in the dungeon before entering and cannot swap party members after entering. Some mobs are a bit bullsh†t though, so is the final boss -- but since he's final you can unload on him all the consumables you've been scrooging all the time, so it's all fine. And the game does not end after that, what is a very good thing -- nothing's more irritating than looting all that powerful stuff from the final boss just to realize you won't be using it. 

[Bartimaeus]

Yuppie Psycho. An isometric 2D indie horror exploration/adventure(?) game that is actually good. I say that because I've tried several other isometric indie horror games over the past couple of years, and they usually end up being very limited in scope, very linear, and fairly unsatisfying - this was the first one that felt like a genuinely good and complete experience. Also, the setting is bizarre - you're some rando poor in a near-future semi-dystopia trying to get on up in the world by accepting a new job at some corporation's headquarters...and the job you're hired on for is to slay a witch that's been haunting the premises for like the last 40 years, but also, the people still working here have kind of just gotten used to it, even though the entire building is a wreck and many of their co-workers just mysteriously disappear without a trace. Okay then!

Edited January 14, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Malcador]

Got Star Wars Squadrons for free.  It's ok, so far, still trying to work the controls (really hate the UI for some reason) to my liking - how said is it I recall the control scheme to TIE Fighter without having played in 20 years.  Did try some MP which was so so, wasn't too laggy and didn't get matched up against people too high level or anything to wreck the experience.  

[melkathi]

Trying to play Emperor: Battle for Dune.

That game hasn't aged well.

[marelooke]

NG+ in Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story. So this is where they disable the quicksaves.

So far it's been retreading the same path as on the original playthrough. So the lack of quicksaves is mostly annoying when you want to quit and do something else, but hasn't, so far anyway, been much of a hindrance otherwise.

Edited January 14, 2021 by marelooke

[melkathi]

Bought Troubleshooter.

Played for three hours.

Had dinner.

Played for three hours.

Brushing teeth now...

Plan is to go to bed right after and not add a "Played for three hours" in between.

[marelooke]

12 hours ago, melkathi said:

Bought Troubleshooter.

Played for three hours.

Had dinner.

Played for three hours.

Brushing teeth now...

Plan is to go to bed right after and not add a "Played for three hours" in between.

Yeah, ok, but is it any good?

[melkathi]

I had one crash at the end of the tutorial.

Now (8 hours later) my game is stuck on the end mission screen and as the game only has one save, I am forced to abandon the completed 48 minute mission, as otherwise it loads me onto the stuck screen. (A patch was just uploaded which may be exactly for that: Dev comment in the patch note "We're sorry to have caused this to happen on Friday when you need to play comfortably."

 

That said.

It is a good game. Every story mission you do adds the map as a repeatable map so you can grind.

It is a jrpg in this. There is a lot to grind. For example I bought something from the shopkeep and got told our relationship was improved by +2. I think I currently have a relationship of +23. Which means I only need another 2976 points to reach the 3000 needed to improve from Neutral to Friendly

The story is very... Asian. When your character runs into a crime in progress he shouts his name "I am Troubleshooter Albus!" Though here people react to it a bit more realistic? As in, early on you get told off for doing so. And the only other person who does it is a certified lunatic (who may think you are a villain. Unless you are a villain or perhaps a villain. But probably you are a villain).

 

The combat works well. It isn't as deadly as normal XCOM games. Especially in the story missions where you control some tougher characters. But it is more RPGy than XCOM games. You seem to have to check buffs on enemies for example lest you kill someone in melee next to a gas station who was affected by a Fire Veil which makes his corpse explode -> blowing up the gas station and setting half your team on fire.

You start with only one character and get a second fairly early (in the first few hours). But you aren't alone in missions as you get police backup and thus have some generic assault rifle wielding grunts (edit: just went into an underground parking lot and police sent me strikers instead, armed with shock batons. Practical as we went and turned off the power to practically disable ranged combat).

In a review someone mentioned they got their third character just before 30 hours. That may be quite strongly affected by how many repeatable missions they farmed though (edit: it took me 10.5 hours to get number 3, but don't know if the way I handled a specific mission sped that up). You do have a deployment max of 8 though apparently (at least the game tells me I am sending 2/8 units to the mission), so I guess we have a long way to go (and not in the bad way like the Mulan training montage).

 

The English translation is not perfect. It does not make blatant mistakes though. Unit voice messages are in ... Korean? I am afraid I am not experienced enough to tell.

Edited January 16, 2021 by melkathi

[Humanoid]

Holiday time means local co-op time, and this year's titles were two EA games, courtesy of EA Play on Game Pass. Buy Game Pass (TM) today!

Ahem. First up was Unravel 2. Gorgeous and adorable little platformer with fun physics, albeit fairly short, and at the end of it I couldn't make heads or tails of what it was meant to be about. I'm sure it was supposed to be something deep and meaningful about the human condition or something but in the end we just ended up scratching our heads. There are a bunch of challenge levels as "extra" content, but we didn't end up doing any past the first couple because of the overly punishing retry penalty - there are no checkpoints in these levels.

Second was A Way Out. You've probably heard of the mandatory co-op gimmick of this game, but I can say I'm glad for it, it works out rather well even during the times that one player is doing filler content while the other is experiencing some story sequences. I admit at first I was concerned that the gameplay might be too much of a Telltale-esque QTE-fest, but mercifully that did not end up the case, and the gameplay was fairly varied throughout. Indeed I'd almost say it more resembles Mario Party than The Walking Dead. The storytelling and acting is ...adequate, classic gritty B-movie stuff, and there are some clownshoes contrivances especially towards the end, where it also starts to abandon any pretense of realism by veering into 80s action flick territory.

_____________

After all that, I'm back home now, and a couple of days ago I ordered an Xbox Sex direct from Microsoft, who must have had a containerful of them dock in the country as they were, shockingly, in stock for hours. It arrived today, and as I test I fired up Overcooked. Level loading times are 2-3 seconds, an order of magnitude better than on my sister's XboneS. Worth the $750AUD already.

[Tale]

So Wildermyth is kind of addictive. It's pretty much exactly what it's advertised as. RPG and storytelling. With the kind of humor you might find in a webcomic, which matches with the papercraft art style.

[melkathi]

The Law & Pancakes Troubleshooting Firm is heading to the Hansando Loading Docks on a super secret mission. 

 

edit: I am at 17.8 hours and now have a party of 4. The person who said in his review he didn't get a third member 'till 30 hours in was definitely playing veeeeeeeeery slooooooow.

Edited January 17, 2021 by melkathi

[melkathi]

Interesting thing about Troubleshooter is that Overwatch does not just trigger on movement.

Yesterday:

VCPD Striker rushes into an alley and takes down a thug with an assault rifle. A VCPD Supressor covers the alley from the south.

A thug with a hatchet rushes the Striker. Supressor triggers overwatch and shoots him, but the thug dodges. Attacks the Striker, who blocks and triggers counter attack taking down the hatchetman.

The counter attack triggers the overwatch from another ganger on the other end of the alley.

 

I lost a Striker that fight because he got charged by a boss enemy, counter attacked and the counter attack triggered the boss' counter attack. It makes you rethink "obvious" skill choices.

[Humanoid]

More co-op filler.

- No Man's Sky. Loaded into the starting planet. Froze to death while trying to figure out the UI. Got bored walking several minutes to do tutorial fetch quest. Moving on...

- Monster Hunter World. Absolutely worthless in co-op because you can't do the story in co-op mode unless you've already done each mission solo. Moving on...

- Forza Horizon 3. Irritatingly makes you do an hour or two of solo content before allowing you to go into multiplayer. But it's cute, in a sort of uncanny valley Australia sort of way. Probably worth a few more sessions.

One out of three ain't bad I guess?