What Are You Playing Now: The meaning of life

[Malcador]

On 12/28/2020 at 9:56 PM, Malcador said:

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

 

Actually, all the VA is worse, somehow.  This game is going to be a slog.  But guess I have to play some crap game, anyway.

[Raithe]

Having a slight break from Cyberpunk to do sci-fi survival and build things in Empyrion.

 

[Hurlshort]

I really enjoyed Empyrion.

I have grown impatient and have started playing Subnautica: Below Zero. I know it isn't totally done yet, but it is still super polished and there is a lot of story to explore. I just made my first base and I've been exploring some crazy biomes. This planet isn't quite as desolate as the last one, I already encountered a real human being. 

[Tale]

Have you heard about our lord and savior Noita?

It's getting hard for me to stick to anything else. I'm always wanting to jump in for a quick run that turns into a few hours and multiple runs. Will I get lightning bolt today? Will I accidentally electrocute myself in water when I do? Will I become electric and stand on a propane tank and explode? Here's to hoping I finally get unlimited bombs and explosion immunity! Finally a luminous drill that can go 4 length indefinitely, killing everything through walls. Except that one thing that... according to wiki only attacks me if I attack it. Too late.

[MrBrown]

2 hours ago, Tale said:

Have you heard about our lord and savior Noita?

I went to uni with one of the guys who's making it, probably the main designer since it looks just like the stuff he used to do back then. My impression was that he can be pretty inventive when making platformers. So if you like the genre, I'm sure Noita will deliver.

[LadyCrimson]

After learning how to switch audio languages for Cyberpunk thru Steam settings, I thought it might work for Death Stranding too.  But then I discovered that DS seems to now include many more languages in the in-game menu to begin with.  When did that happen, one of the patches I presume - most definitely couldn't do that before, it was the first thing I checked when I bought it on PC (couldn't change it on console originally either).

But whatever...it means that finally I can play Death Stranding with Kenjiro Tsuda's voice instead of Norman Reedus' voice!  Now I have a new motivation/reason to actually play again and finish the game on PC.  ::happydance::

[Tale]

And now I just binged through Blacksad. Shows 7 hours, but it felt a little longer. Anyway, it's up there with Telltale's best. Right behind Telltale's own Noir comic license, A Wolf Among Us.

[Hurlshort]

Subnautica: Below Zero is really fantastic. They are increasing the price soon, it is only $20 now, so pick it up if you were a fan of the original. They've improved a few things and give you an excellent new world to explore.

[ComradeYellow]

Hitman 2 (2018)

The reboot is great but imo it kinda lacks the magic over the older series, especially Blood Money.  I'd call it quality vs. quantity.

It just sometimes feels more like a Bourne Identity-Bondesque series than a Hitman series.

Hitman generally kill for money w/o too much emphasis on moral considerations, every single person you have to assassinate is some kind of super villain.

[Malcador]

Bailed on Brno in FM, just couldn't take the restrictions and having pointless drama queens. Ended up at Zenit, which is a surprise, sort of hate playing in Russia as I need Russian players on the field and invariably decent ones seem to be scarce.  But can at least use them to build reputation.

[Keyrock]

I've reached chapter 6 (of 15) in my NG+ Legend playthrough of Y:LaD. I'm not going to sugar coat it, it's a slog.

In the regular playthrough I breezed through most of the game. There were a few tough battles, but nothing really brutal. Plus, if I wanted to overlevel, it was generally a pretty quick process, especially once I unlocked Sotenbori.

Playing on Legend difficulty even random mooks can put up a good, albeit manageable, fight. Special fights can be really brutal and require specific party composition and gear, and even then you need to grind quite a bit to get tough enough to survive until you can whittle down numbers. For extra madness I'm currently running Saeko as a Dealer. The Dealer is a SUPER RNG job. Random damage, random buffs, random debuffs, random targets, it's bonkers. There's one particularly powerful skill that can even sometimes hit your own party members and totally screw you over... or it can do massive damage to the enemies, or completely miss, or some combination of those outcomes. I doubt I'll run this job late game, but it definitely makes things tense and interesting. 

Edited January 4, 2021 by Keyrock

[Llyranor]

i've been enjoying Outward coop. Slightly janky, but the survival/exploration is quite fun. We just made it to a new town, but our loot chest is in our hometown so we can't just dump all our stuff, and we're too broke to afford an inn, so vagrancy it is!

[Tale]

I played through Beyond a Steel Sky over the weekend. Joey is fantastic. That's the only noteworthy part of the game, sadly. None of the other characters are worth remembering. And the story is exactly what you're used to from dystopia disguised as utopia fiction. But Joey is funny and a delight and I wish the game had been all about him instead of the world's most dull and emotionless man, Foster.

I find myself wanting a really good party based RPG with quirky characters or super funny adventure game. Sadly I'm turning up empty for one I haven't already played yet. Recommendations, anyone?

[Keyrock]

22 minutes ago, Tale said:

I find myself wanting a really good party based RPG with quirky characters

Yakuza: Like a Dragon is a party based RPG with a mix of tense, dramatic, heartwarming, and completely bat**** crazy. It's from Ryu Ga Gotoku, so it's GotY-level good.

Edited January 5, 2021 by Keyrock

[Tale]

I'm really wary of anything Yakuza. I played 14 hours of 0 before realizing I'd only encountered about an hour of worthwhile plot. The game has the pacing of someone walking their execution. It doesn't want to get on with it.

I'm serious when I say I thought I'd only had about an hour of plot. Looking at my achievements and I'm in Chapter 5 and apparently completed 10 substories. And I don't remember a single damn thing.

[Lexx]

Just finished Disco Elysium.

It's probably the best written game I've played in years. Was very impressed lots of times. The middle part was a bit boring, because the game made you run around a lot, and also started throwing lots of exposition around. However, it got better again to the end.

Making this game must have been an incredible amount of work.

[Malcador]

Still moving on in Secret Files 2.  Really hate Max's voice in this one.  Puzzles aren't too bad, had trouble with the temple entrance one, I guess I didn't think of fish and slugs as mute and homeless.  Fair amount of people die in this one, even a kid, well off-screen.

[BruceVC]

I finished Bards Tale 4 yesterday and what a gaming experience it was, firstly it scores a solid 70/100 on the globally respected and followed " BruceVC gaming rating score " system 

However for those that havent played this RPG yet I need to share some important feedback so you dont misunderstand the good and bad of this game 

It was unquestionably the hardest RPG I have ever played and the primary reason for this is the puzzles that are intrinsically part of the game and cannot be ignored or glossed over. There are about 5-6 puzzles that come up  regularly throughout the game in different maps so if you dont like puzzles dont play this RPG 

I generally dont like puzzles or rather I dont like spending hours trying to solve them....life is too short for me to spend 4 hours on a specific puzzle in any game. The secret to Bards Tale puzzles is all the puzzles have similar mechanics around their basic rules so you must learn this and then the solving of them becomes  fun or much less frustrating 

I admit even though I learnt the mechanics of the puzzles I used game guides for at least 30-35 % of all puzzles but the game guides are not always clear and sometimes wrong with their views on how to solve them. But the guides definitely help 

Then sometimes, especially in the beginning of the game on early levels , some of the combat seems unbalanced agaisnt your party so I would sometimes drop the difficulty level to easy for about 10 % of all combat. Dont feel bad about doing this because some battles are almost impossible without this

But the combat and skill advancement is complex and great fun once you understand the various metrics like Divinity 2 

Also there is very  little hand holding and you must get use to going back to rooms and areas on maps because sometimes you can easily miss a key that is critical to open a certain gate, once again I sometimes used guides to find where certain items were

But the game design is excellent around offering you side quests and exciting different ways to advance your party and they do reward you for " going off the beaten path  " and exploring things outside the primary quest 

So in closing, excellent RPG but very difficult around puzzles that can become very frustrating if you dont fully understand the puzzle objective and trust me some of the puzzles, like the blood flowing door opening cogs, can be incredibly difficult to understand

Interesting statistic, based on accurate Steam data only 6 % of all people who started this RPG finally completed it so its definitely a " hardcore " RPG and not for everyone who may prefer a less complex gaming experience

But well done InXile for creating such a compelling game 

Edited January 6, 2021 by BruceVC

[Keyrock]

Swallowed my pride and turned the difficulty down to hard in my NG+ run of Y:LaD. There is a boss fight in chapter 6 against an excavator and it's just absolutely brutal, not quite Emerald Weapon level but quite punishing. You kind of have to just hope it doesn't use one of two ultra-powerful attacks that can just one-shot multiple party members and I'm kind of stuck in that dungeon and grinding to get tough enough to where I could survive those attacks regularly with my entire party would take so ridiculously long. I'll run through the game on hard, ignoring all the side content, until I get to Sotenbori and the battle arena, which is the best place to grind by several country miles. After I complete the game on hard I'll start NG+(+) on Legend, but at level 80+ and at least level 40 in every job.

It's a testament to how much I like this game that I'm willing to put myself through Legend difficulty. It's akin to Supreme Jerk in Wasteland, just an utterly unfair difficulty.

Edited January 6, 2021 by Keyrock

[Vaeliorin]

Finished Fell Seal.  It was really good.  I even got all the achievements (there was only one that was kind of a pain to get, which was maxing out all the monster classes.)  Looking forward to trying it with some mods.

[melkathi]

Played some Iron Harvest because it has an actual demo you can download and play!!!

[Mamoulian War]

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

[uuuhhii]

trying to replay poe2

but pc are super slow for some reason

couldn't even play a 20mb audio file

and some exe couldn't start

Edited January 7, 2021 by uuuhhii

[melkathi]

It took me a long time to figure out what poe2 was.

"There is a game about Poe?"

"There is a second game about Poe?"

"Wait, that is an acronym... Planet of... epilepsy warnings? of Equestrians?"

"Got it! Planet of Edgar. Clever word play with the acronym there. Who came up with that? I want to play that game."

Then it clicked.

I have to admit, a bit disappointed.

[BruceVC]

On 1/3/2021 at 2:43 AM, ComradeMaster said:

Hitman 2 (2018)

The reboot is great but imo it kinda lacks the magic over the older series, especially Blood Money.  I'd call it quality vs. quantity.

It just sometimes feels more like a Bourne Identity-Bondesque series than a Hitman series.

Hitman generally kill for money w/o too much emphasis on moral considerations, every single person you have to assassinate is some kind of super villain.

 

17 hours ago, Keyrock said:

Swallowed my pride and turned the difficulty down to hard in my NG+ run of Y:LaD. There is a boss fight in chapter 6 against an excavator and it's just absolutely brutal, not quite Emerald Weapon level but quite punishing. You kind of have to just hope it doesn't use one of two ultra-powerful attacks that can just one-shot multiple party members and I'm kind of stuck in that dungeon and grinding to get tough enough to where I could survive those attacks regularly with my entire party would take so ridiculously long. I'll run through the game on hard, ignoring all the side content, until I get to Sotenbori and the battle arena, which is the best place to grind by several country miles. After I complete the game on hard I'll start NG+(+) on Legend, but at level 80+ and at least level 40 in every job.

It's a testament to how much I like this game that I'm willing to put myself through Legend difficulty. It's akin to Supreme Jerk in Wasteland, just an utterly unfair difficulty.

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 

As I mentioned in my Bards Tale 4 review I sometimes drop the difficulty level on some games, not all games like RDR2 single player or Bioware games , and even  though I consciously do it under no manipulation or coercion I always feel guilty ...always. Like I am breaking some kind of code and I am betraying some principle which I dont really know how to explain how or what I am breaking