What Are You Playing Now: The meaning of life

[Llyranor]

I haven't played singleplayer games much these past few years, but 2020 has been special and I've played a few.

Quick impressions!

-Doom Eternal: Probably my favorite FPS, the fast-paced combat is just exhilarating.

-Sekiro: Played this right after and surprisingly I loved the combat even more. This game really really impressed me. Exploration was enjoyable too.

-Into the Breach: This little turn-based gem is freaking awesome! I love how the game mostly deals with input randomness, but allows you incredible control by letting you know exactly how the enemy will act and in what order, giving a lot of depth in what is ultimately a pretty simple system.

-Slay the Spire: Very cool deck-builder roguelike. The various characters added some nice variety, but ultimately this didn't have as much lasting value as some of the other games for me.

-Steamworld Heist: I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by this one. It turns out that 2D squad tactics with Scorched Earth/Worms-aiming combines very nicely.

-Ori & the Will of the Wisps: I already loved the first Ori, so I knew I'd like this one. It definitely meets my expectations. Fantastic metroidvania with great exploration and traversal, and also an audiovisual fest.

-Disco Elysium: I was enjoying it (nice writing!) until I got sidetracked and lost interest. Getting back to an RPG I've put on hold is very very hard for me. Or maybe I don't have the patience or constitution for RPGs anymore. I dunno.

[BruceVC]

I am currently playing Bards Tale  4 and 7 hours in and enjoying it, its not like Witcher 3 or Divinity 2 but its entertaining and the combat starts to make sense after a while so Im happy 

 

[Keyrock]

I may have made a mistake replaying Y:LaD on Legend difficulty. I am already riding the struggle bus and I am quite early in the game where I was absolutely breezing through battles on regular difficulty. There are battles orders of magnitude harder later on.

As an aside, I decided to go with English voice acting this time, whereas I did Japanese + subtitles the first time around. The English voice acting is solid but it just feels wrong somehow. Conversely, when I played Judgment, I tried both and wound up sticking with English since it felt right.

[the_dog_days]

18 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I am currently playing Bards Tale  4 and 7 hours in and enjoying it, its not like Witcher 3 or Divinity 2 but its entertaining and the combat starts to make sense after a while so Im happy 

 

Played Bard's Tale 4 over the summer. Great game, though buggy and it has no replay value.

[BruceVC]

9 hours ago, the_dog_days said:

Played Bard's Tale 4 over the summer. Great game, though buggy and it has no replay value.

So far so good, no bugs I have noticed and I have just completed  Kylearen Tower 

[Malcador]

Went back to managing Brno in FM as I can play that game while at work.  Think I will have to embrace my inner Mourinho and play utterly boring, yet effective football as my players are all morons and I can't get any with intelligence to play for me. 

[Mamoulian War]

I have finally finished the main campaign of Shadowrun Hong Kong - Extended Edition, the third installment in the series. The game is as good as two previous entries, with the exception of some of the extremely text heavy intermezzos in Heoi, which were in my opinion little bit bloated. This does not change the fact, that I had a lot of fun with the rest of the game. In the end, I was able to shut down The Fortune Machine, unfortunately with Raymond having to sacrifice himself :(

 

Next in line will be the short Deluxe Edition Campaign.

[Hurlshort]

I hope Harebrained returns to Shadowrun soon. I could not get into their Battletech games, but I love Shadowrun sooooo much!

[ShadySands]

I liked BattleTech but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed with it. That said, I'll do unspeakable things for more Shadowrun. 

[uuuhhii]

vampire the masquerade shadows of new york

much better than the last one

main character have a very likable personality

side character are better used

and there are more than one ending

[Mamoulian War]

10 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

I hope Harebrained returns to Shadowrun soon. I could not get into their Battletech games, but I love Shadowrun sooooo much!

 

6 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I liked BattleTech but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed with it. That said, I'll do unspeakable things for more Shadowrun. 

I am in the same league with both of you. Shadowrun is not the best of the best, but it has something, which can draw me into the story, like very few other games. Unless, I am in Heoi, and are talking two hours straight with my party-members  

[MrBrown]

They pretty much said that they're not doing more Battletech. They originally had a bunch of stuff they said they would do if it gets popular, but none of that happened.

Can't remember the details or exact wordings, it's been a while.

[kanisatha]

On 12/22/2020 at 2:42 PM, BruceVC said:

So far so good, no bugs I have noticed and I have just completed  Kylearen Tower 

Good to hear, you guys. I backed BT4 and so have a copy but have yet to launch it. Your comments are encouraging.

[BruceVC]

49 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Good to hear, you guys. I backed BT4 and so have a copy but have yet to launch it. Your comments are encouraging.

I will give you my proper feedback, without ruining anything, once I have completed it 

But I am thoroughly enjoying it now, similar to Divinity 2 part of that enjoyment  is about  100%  understanding the combat and that makes a huge difference as the narrative unfolds 

So well done for backing it, it was worth it 

[kanisatha]

22 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I will give you my proper feedback, without ruining anything, once I have completed it 

But I am thoroughly enjoying it now, similar to Divinity 2 part of that enjoyment  is about  100%  understanding the combat and that makes a huge difference as the narrative unfolds 

So well done for backing it, it was worth it 

The reason I've been hesitant to play it is precisely the TB combat, which I generally dislike. But sometimes a game can surprise me, where I end up enjoying it despite not liking its combat system (ex. T:ToN, which I also backed).

[Tale]

Cyberpunk 2077, or technically I just finished it. I don't think there's any sidquests left for me to do and there's one ending I can't get without a restart. Maybe I'll do that after they release expansions.

[Malcador]

Finished off Secret Files.  The epilogue and credits were pretty amusing

 

[Mamoulian War]

Now that we have here 25th anniversary od Tales of Series, I have booted up Tales of Zestiria, after more than two year break, and finally finished the Hexen Isle post game content. The last two fights were ridiculously long, because, I couldn't be arsed to spend few hours grinding for equipment fusions. Still, I've spent less time getting to them and finishing them, than I would spent on grinding. The game is still fun to play as I remember, with occasional camera issues in fight arenas and ridiculously overpowered caster mobs compared to melee ones

Shadowrun HongKong Bonus Episode will have to wait little bit for now, because for now I'll go again for the Alisha's Story, because I still miss two Trophies in her DLC

[Vaeliorin]

On 12/24/2020 at 11:04 AM, kanisatha said:

Good to hear, you guys. I backed BT4 and so have a copy but have yet to launch it. Your comments are encouraging.

if I recall correctly, I only ever launched it to make sure it would run...I have 2 minutes play time in it.  I was just waiting for it to get the bugs fixed after launch, and have never gotten back around to it.  The poor reviews have also contributed to me not prioritizing it.

Anyway, I'm playing Horizon Zero Dawn.  It's really good.  I'm ridiculously overlevelled due to doing lots of futzing around prior to reaching Meridian (I'm level 34 and I've only done 1 quest since leaving Meridian), but that's okay, because I'm kind of terrible at the combat (I tend to lose track of enemies when they go running/flying past.)

[Malcador]

On to Secret Files 2....the voice acting for Nina is worse.

 

[Katphood]

I was enjoying Grim Fandango Remastered on the PS4 until I hit a weird save game bug and it ruined the game for me. It can take up to 2 or 3 minutes each time you try to save...

 

[Mamoulian War]

Other games are ok? Maybe try rebuild database?

[Katphood]

Just now, Mamoulian War said:

Other games are ok? Maybe try rebuild database?

Yeah, other games didn't seem to have a problem but I give the 'rebuild database' a shot since I haven't done that for quite some time. Maybe it will help.

[kirottu]

On 12/21/2020 at 4:09 AM, Llyranor said:

-Disco Elysium: I was enjoying it (nice writing!) until I got sidetracked and lost interest. Getting back to an RPG I've put on hold is very very hard for me. Or maybe I don't have the patience or constitution for RPGs anymore. I dunno.

Just re-roll a new character and start again. Deep down you know you want to.

I just finished Fallout 2. I think it's almost 20 years since the last time and the game is definitely showing its age. Maybe because I'm older, but I also found the many pop culture references broke my immersion. I used think Fallout 2 was the best Fallout, but now I think it's the third best after New Vegas and Fallout 1.

[Mamoulian War]

After two years break, I have decided to go back to my PS4 copy of Tales of Zestiria. After full clear of Hexen Isle, I went for second playthrough of Tales of Zestiria – The Strength of a Knight DLC, with the goal of getting 100% of Trophies. After getting to the Malevolent Crucible: Naraka, I've spent some time fusing the equipment and slowly started to learn to optimize the way how to approach the encounter, so I could defeat the boss in less than 2 minutes. After the first try, I was 15 seconds to slow. Not bad. In total, I have spent more than 2 hours to execute the fight properly with no mistakes, and missed the mark twice with less than 1 second behind the target time. In the end the final Speedy Duo Trophy was mine, exactly at 3:30 in the morning, after the famous words One Last Try . The final time was 1:52.29.

Here is the full attempt with the complete stats and equip in the description, if anyone would like to try this fight with their own copy