What are you Playing Now? Games = Life

[Bartimaeus]

Subnautica: Below Zero. I must've selected the wrong difficulty mode, because I was about 4 hours into the game when I got out of my Seatruck, picked up some lithium, turned around and was instantly eaten that I then discovered I wasn't on the normal difficulty mode, because my save game had been deleted.

Maybe I'll try it again next year - don't really feel like doing all that early game collecting all over again.

[the_dog_days]

4 hours ago, Keyrock said:

I might be the only person on the planet that likes The Witcher 2 the best of the trilogy. 

The Witcher 2 is kinda the oddball of the bunch. Of the trilogy, it's the only game you could argue Geralt is the main character. (In the Witcher Albert is the main character and Ciri is the main character for TW3.) I really liked Geralt not being the main character. It made the series feel unique compared to BioWare or Bethesda rpgs.

Edited December 15, 2021 by the_dog_days

[Zoraptor]

I wouldn't put it like that, since Geralt is certainly the main character- he's your avatar, he pretty much has to be. I'd probably use the term 'plot driver' instead.

In any case the issue with having that as a unique point for TW2 is that Emhyr is extremely similar to Jacques/ Alvin in TW1 in terms of their role in the plot. They're both shadowy figures hiding behind proxies in Prof/ Javed or Letho (with a big assist from the brains trust that is Sìle and Philippa). Of course in TW3 you more or less know who the antagonist is from the start- it's the Wild Hunt, and Interdimensional Elf Hitler is barely more than a caricature at any point. The big difference in TW2 compared to the others plot wise is that you never meet the the antagonist and he actually 'won' the game after about 2 hours game time. The entire 25 hours of game time after that is mitigating the disaster. Whatever you do Emhyr is sitting at the Yaruga laughing at the end, it's only a question of how long and how hard he's laughing for.

[Humanoid]

I don't really split the second and third games, I quite like both and played them in similar ways. Yes, TW3 has all the extra padding, but I'm not at all compulsive about doing random side content and have no trouble ignoring it once I've had my fill. So for me the main difference between the two is the addition of the dodge button. It's a good addition in that rolling everywhere was kind of silly, but the downside of the addition is that I no longer find it playable on keyboard.

[bugarup]

I hate TW2's combat more than TW1's.  My last attempt at TW2 at least took me past tutorial, but I stalled in some forest-type corridor labyrinth where I was passing time until some 8-17 workhour schmuck arrives to his office or something. I hope there will be proper cities somewhere ahead and not just bloody stupid corridor dungeons, because OCD demands to finish TW2 before doing TW3 and I am sooooo unmotivated to finish TW2. 

[Lexx]

I also like TW2 more than 3. It took me a long time to just finish TW3 .. somehow the game really did not want to click with me. Can't even really tell why that is. Maybe part of it is the minimap which my eyes were glued on all the time, so I can't even remember anything of the landscapes. Another thing might be the boring "exploration" of the world, which felt artificial to me.

TW2 had this tighter story focus. It was a somewhat smaller game and thus felt better to me.

That said, I never finished TW1, because the loading times killed all the fun for me.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Lexx

[melkathi]

@Lexx we missed you yesterday in the first ever Obsidian Forum MW5 coop romp.

Chill is the better pilot and the better shot.

I am the better jump-jet-jumper and punch-other-mech-in-the-face-puncher.

[Lexx]

Too busy right now to play and starting on weekend I won't be at home for 3 weeks.

[Oner]

Man, now I miss that time a bunch of us co-op'd Dungeon Siege 3.

[Sarex]

I miss the times when I was really exited by video games and played everything I could get my hands on... Sadly nowadays I spend most of my free time zombifying myself with the internet...

[Malcador]

The Forge in SoTR was a fun puzzle, died more times due to overestimating the jump distance, heh.  Unlocked the farewell mission at last, so that's almost done. 

Then will take something from my backlog of games, maybe Omerta...

[Chilloutman]

I would not say I am better pilot...

[kanisatha]

On 12/13/2021 at 12:18 PM, BruceVC said:

I played D:OS2 about 8-9 months ago and it was my first Larian game ....I had only heard mostly good things about Larian studio and one of my brothers and his gaming friends recommend D:OS2 

And I was desperate to enjoy it because of BG3 and my logic says if I dont like the design and mechanics of D:OS2 then its unlikely I will enjoy Larians creation of BG3

But  I can easily say it was one of my top 5 RPG all time. I loved the combat strategies, the companion interaction and their side quests 

And  the narrative was compelling so I now have no unreasonable concerns with  the final version of BG3 

This is one of the very few (may be the only) things you and I disagree on, Bruce.

[BruceVC]

12 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

This is one of the very few (may be the only) things you and I disagree on, Bruce.

Kanie this is very important debate around a contentious issue that many gaming forums discuss. With the general question being " can Larian deliver a worthwhile BG3 experience and honor the originals " ? And for the record BG2:ToB is my favorite RPG of all time so I want BG3 to succeed 

I am of the view Larian  can because of how much I enjoyed D:OS2 and then the salient question is " okay but what did you enjoy about D:OS2 ". So me it was

• I enjoyed the overall narrative and the lore was believable and interesting but could have been deeper
• The party companions were memorable and had interesting side quests which matters to any BG game, your party matters.They even had some Romance at the end of D:OS2 which I always appreciate
• The combat was a huge part of the enjoyment with the different strategies and how you utilized your companions skills and magic 
• And then the monsters and places to explore seemed adequate and entertaining. I am expecting more with BG3 because of the variety of monsters and interesting Forgotten Realm world 

So what are yours and others concerns with BG3 ?

[Wormerine]

15 hours ago, Vaeliorin said:

I do think TW2 had the best combat.

Ufff, I thought it was the worst by far. It didn't quite transition into action combat yet, with animations having little to do with actual hit detection making it more invasive then W1, but not engaging as an action RPG. 

tW2 is probably the most interesting out of the three with it's reactivity being the most ambitious I have seen to date, and a prime example of why "real reactivity" (unique content based on our actions) isn't necessarily a good thing.

Witcher3 is easily the best of the three IMO. There isn't a single thing that 1&2 do better then Witcher3 - better gameplay, better world, better quests, better story, best balance between book continuation and new story, most faithful to the characters etc. etc. Need to give it 2nd playthrough. 

I adore Witcher1 as well. Witcher2 is... interesting. A lot of cool ambitious and fresh ideas that don't quite pan out. 

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

The Forge in SoTR was a fun puzzle, died more times due to overestimating the jump distance, heh.  Unlocked the farewell mission at last, so that's almost done. 

Then will take something from my backlog of games, maybe Omerta...

I always balked at playing Omerta. It seemed like it was up my alley, but the reviews are pretty rough.

They have made a ton of changes to Empire of Sin, so I might try that one again instead. I'd love a decent organized crime game. 

[Malcador]

I think I got it for free.  Funny how you can still feel ripped off at that price, Still Life 2 was that experience for me, awful experience.

[Wormerine]

27 hours into Sekiro and still digging it. Here is posing after

the Owl

fight. 

Just did some reading on the endings, and it seems I am mostly set for the good good ending, but as is tradition there is alternative version of Hirata Estate that I would have missed otherwise. 

[Keyrock]

I think the open world, especially given how large it is, does TW3 a disservice. Giant open worlds full of icons are fine when there isn't a ticking clock, but TW3, in theory, always has a ticking clock to (in theory) drive you forward.

In the prologue I am tracking Yennefer, I'm only a couple days behind, there are signs of a battle, she could be injured or in trouble, WE NEED TO FIND HER QUICKLY! Gameplay wise, I'm going to go ahead and **** around in the boondocks for a few days. It doesn't make any sense.

Later on it's, in theory, a race against The Wild Hunt to get to Ciri. THE FATE OF THE WORLD IS AT STAKE! We need to hurry and track her down as quickly as possible... But first I'm going to make some coin doung a Kikimore contract for some backwater yokels. Monster contracts would make sense, I am a Witcher, after all, it's my job, if the ticking clock wasn't there. But narratively the ticking clock is there.

What I'm trying to say is that the narrative and the gameplay are at odds with each other. If you are the type that can tunnel vision on the main quest and 

then this isn't really an issue. For a lot of people like myself, we can't help but get distracted by all the side content, especially given how well written much of it is, and this completely ruins the pacing of the story and the narrative as a whole.

Sometimes a more linear game is better suited for a given story.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Keyrock
Grammar

[Vaeliorin]

2 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Ufff, I thought it was the worst by far. It didn't quite transition into action combat yet, with animations having little to do with actual hit detection making it more invasive then W1, but not engaging as an action RPG. 

tW2 is probably the most interesting out of the three with it's reactivity being the most ambitious I have seen to date, and a prime example of why "real reactivity" (unique content based on our actions) isn't necessarily a good thing.

Witcher3 is easily the best of the three IMO. There isn't a single thing that 1&2 do better then Witcher3 - better gameplay, better world, better quests, better story, best balance between book continuation and new story, most faithful to the characters etc. etc. Need to give it 2nd playthrough. 

I adore Witcher1 as well. Witcher2 is... interesting. A lot of cool ambitious and fresh ideas that don't quite pan out. 

It was pretty much mostly the traps.  I really liked the traps.

[Wormerine]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

I think the open world, especially given how large it is, does TW3 a disservice. Giant open worlds full of icons are fine when there isn't a ticking clock, but TW3, in theory, always has a ticking clock to (in theory) drive you forward.

Fair enough, though personally I didn’t find it to be the case. I felt at times compelled to continue story back to back, and at others I felt it gave me a breather to do other stuff. There were one or two instances in particular when the game gave you narrative reasons to not progress the story immediately. 

I often have the issue you are describing in other open world games, but not in tW3.  Or it might have been just me wanting to play more Gwent. You know, I would have a session when I would do storyline, and I would have sessions where I would do side stuff. Perhaps, they are more separate in my mind, then they were for you. 

I also avoided using fast travel, unless here was literally nothing on the way - so a lot of “openworld busy work” was part of the journey for me, rather then a distraction. 

[Malcador]

Generally is a problem with having urgency in a game, handcuffs the creator otherwise.

[Keyrock]

To be clear, I think you can have a ticking clock element in an open world game, it can work really well, in fact, but it needs to be a real ticking clock integrated into the gameplay and not just a "ticking clock".

A good example of this is Fallout. You have 100 days I think (it's been a while) to get the part you need. You can go wherever you want and do whatever you want, but if you waste too much time ****ing around then Vault 13 is ****ed.

Conversely, in TW3 you can spend a month in some random town drinking, playing Gwent, and getting to know the local wenches. This won't impact the main story. The game won't suddenly tell you that Eredin has caught Ciri, you are a terrible father, and you lose.

[the_dog_days]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

Gameplay wise, I'm going to go ahead and **** around in the boondocks for a few days.

I was just glad there was a game that let me do what I do irl.

[the_dog_days]

1 hour ago, Vaeliorin said:

It was pretty much mostly the traps.  I really liked the traps.