What are you Playing Now? Who needs a life anyway?...

[Keyrock]

That's true, there is a lot more grass in Elex 2 (the World Heart at work ) and not just green ground. No physics to it, though. The grass isn't a physical object, you just walk right through it and it doesn't react at all. On the bright side, lovely sound effect for walking through grass and you usually don't see your legs unless you pitch the camera way overhead, so the lack of physics doesn't matter much.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Keyrock

[Hurlshort]

Dex is a good kid. He clearly gets his looks from his dad.

[the_dog_days]

1 hour ago, Hurlsnot said:

Dex is a good kid. He clearly gets his looks from his dad.

Hopefully he didn't inherit his father's male pattern baldness too.

[BruceVC]

I have some great news, its a public holiday in SA on Monday and I have decided to play Oblivion again but this time I will be using mods 

Any Oblivion mods suggestions would be appreciated but I generally use mods that are lore friendly and enhance the default game. For example extra monsters, more dungeons, more spells and animals with enhanced AI

@HoonDing

I found a nice adult mod for Viconia from BG as a companion with full Romance options 

You  need a Nexus user account to view it 

https://www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mods/15200

[melkathi]

So you will not be playing Oblivion, you will be installing mods and trying to get the load order just right so the game will not crash on startup, and when it launches try to figure out why all npcs are in t-pose.

Edited March 19, 2022 by melkathi

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, melkathi said:

So you will not be playing Oblivion, you will be installing mods and trying to get the load order just right so the game will not crash on startup, and when it launches try to figure out while all npcs are in t-pose.

Its funny how so many people always say and their is some truth to it 

So typically I would spend about 24 hours researching, installing and then troubleshooting, if necessary, mods I use

But I use Nexus Mod Manager and the functionality makes working with mods much easier. But I do take about 4-6 days to prepare for any Elder Scroll games which means I spend about 2-5 hours a day on the preparation 

But its worth it, every hour. Especially when you see all your mods working nicely 

 

[Wormerine]

I definitely spent more time modding Skyrim/Oblivion then playing the games. 

[the_dog_days]

4 hours ago, Wormerine said:

I definitely spent more time modding Skyrim/Oblivion then playing the games. 

Usually when I get the urge to play a Bethesda game I then proceed to spend 20 hours getting my mods in order only to be completely over the idea within the first 10 hours of actual game.

[Keyrock]

I'm splitting time between Elex 2 and Forza Horizon 5. 

In Elex 2 I reached the Morkon Grotto. I had Caja with me and once I realized where I was, I asked her to head back to The Bastion. Given her hatred of Morkons and them likely not appreciating having a Berserker warlord in their stronghold, I thought it prudent to not have her along, though I am a bit curious if they would have eventually kicked her out or she would have left of her own volition. I didn't know I'd find Nasty in there, I guess she's a Morkon now. She was as, ahem, charming as ever. My favorite part was when the conversation was over and she started to walk away she yelled "stop staring at my ass". Guilty as charged. 

I was playing The Crew 2 a ton before I got my xXxBOxXx, which makes a good point of comparison with Forza Horizon 5, given that they are both open world racing games and both utilize the (DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN!) live service model. Obviously, FH5 is a better looking game, given that it's newer and running on a more powerful console, not that TC2 was ugly, or anything. The biggest difference I have noticed is draw distance. TC2 on PS4 Pro had definite pop-in. It wasn't horrible, but it was easily noticeable. FH5 in performance mode (60 FPS) does have pop-in, but it's waaaay in the distance and only noticeable when specifically looking for it. In quality mode (30 FPS) I never ever saw pop-in in the brief time I tested that mode. Also TC2 had stutters. They were very rare, but when they happened they super duper sucked, ruining my racing rhythm. FH5 so far has had no stutters, frame rate dips, or any performance issues whatsoever, not in the brief time I tested quality mode nor in the hours I've played in performance mode.

As for gameplay, while neither game could be accused of being a sim, not even in the broadest, most generous interpretation of the term, TC2 definitely felt more arcadey. FH5 also has a lot more tuning options, letting you tinker with sway bar stiffness, camber, downforce, and such on pretty much any car (that I've tested so far) whereas TC2 only let you do that with Alpha category (Formula/Indy type race cars) vehicles. Both have an absolutely gargantuan selection of cars but TC2 also had planes, boats, hovercraft, and motorcycles.

The live service model in TC2 felt very generous, there was never a time I felt compelled to spend money, getting cars with in-game currency felt completely reasonable. There were so many different race events and challenges that I never ran out of stuff to do and felt the need to grind races I had already done. Granted, I jumped into that game when it had already been out for over 3 years, so I had the benefit of all that extra content already being there. Impressively, they are still continuing to add content regularly to this day. As for FH5, no complaints so far, there seems to be a ton of content already and the game is less than a half year old. The jury is still out on how well it will be supported down the line, obviously, but I can't see myself running out of stuff to do anytime soon. I do hope they add motorcycles in the future.

Lastly, the settings. TC2 takes place in a highly compressed and hilariously inaccurate contiguous United States while FH5 takes place in an undoubtedly compressed portion of Mexico, no comment on how accurate it is. As a guy who has seen most of the US in person, I much prefer driving around in Mexico, since it's foreign to me and thus more exotic. Also, Mexico has pyramids and the Bass Pro Shops pyramid in Memphis is sadly not in TC2. Pyramids are awesome.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Keyrock

[HoonDing]

Figures Kate's old acquaintances are still complete SOBs.

Edited March 20, 2022 by HoonDing

[Malcador]

Wonder why they don't allow us to skip conversations in the new Syberia.   I still hate Oscar.

[HoonDing]

Oscar's alright.

I've always really hated Crow from Longest Journey. April's annoying too, though.

I no longer can stand adventure games with teenybopper main characters. Edited March 20, 2022 by HoonDing

[Malcador]

At least no youkols, so far. Last game I was getting pissed off with them shuffling around while the White Saviour did her thing.

I'm spending more time trying to satisfy the secondary objectives than actually solving the puzzles, more fool me I guess. 

[mkreku]

Playing Elex 2 right now (along with short bursts of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs: Legion and Far Cry 6.. that's a combined 500 hours right there!).

I'm biased as hell since I'm a huge fan of Piranha Bytes ever since Gothic at the beginning of time, but I must say that Elex 2 is a return to form for Piranha Bytes in my opinion. Elex was.. ok. It introduced a new setting, a new main character and it was a good try at something new for the team (mix of tech and magic). It just ended up being so bland. The gameworld was colourless and repetitive, the enemies were the same as previous games except less colourful and the story was.. let's call it un-memorable (better than forgettable, shut up).

Elex 2 started off horribly for me. The writing/editing in the first few minues was so bad I honestly didn't understand what was going on (I had forgotten a lot of Elex's story) and the starting area looked even blander than I remembered from Elex. But since I had pre-ordered (don't judge!) at almost full price, I pressed on. I fought a few weird creatures, climbed a few towers with my jetpack and lo and behold, slowly but surely I started getting that Piranha Bytes feeling back again. After a while I even started finding quests that were well written and the game started making sense. Not only that, some of the quests were actually interesting enough for me to want to solve them for reasons other than the reward at the end (not always a given, unfortunately)! 

The world feels much more varied this time around, the characters feel more fleshed out (and the dialogue is so encompassing, it feels like the characters have something to say about every scene, no matter which companion you happen to travel with) and the combat feels much better now (especially ranged). I do, however, also feel that they might have eased up on the difficulty level a tad bit too much. I can understand why they did it (judging by the feedback from the first game) but I think they might have overshot it. The main thing though is that this feels like a proper Piranha Bytes game again: open world, no hand holding, secrets around every corner, no quest markers/map icons/Ubi towers or any of that crap, just pure unadulterated violent exploration. I love it. I should probably mention that the jetpack is brilliant this time around and you'll actually get to use it to its full capacity for some of the game's more hidden stuff. Farting about around decaying skyscrapers is awesome.

I've maxed out my character now and just entered chapter 3 so the game is starting to feel a bit long in the tooth. I'll probably stop running around so much and concentrate more on the actual story quests from now on. But it has definitely already given me my money's worth.

Also, and this is definitely worth mentioning, I haven't had a single crash for over 90 hours! I haven't even encountered any bugs! That is amazing and such a gigantic change from, for example, the release of Gothic 3 (if anyone remembers that disaster).

KUDOS TO YOU, PIRANHA BYTES!

[HoonDing]

Nice how Syberia series "redeemed" itself (even though 3 is still better than 2 despite its unevenness).

While Longest Journey series became a complete dumpsterfire.

[Hurlshort]

I'm hooked on Elex II, of course, but I also put some time into a new mercenary band in Battle Brothers. The new Oath system is interesting. 

[Malcador]

18 hours ago, HoonDing said:

Figures Kate's old acquaintances are still complete SOBs.

I was so disappointed to not be able to tear a strip off Olivia on that call.

[Keyrock]

It's too bad you can only have one companion at a time. I'd love to have both Caja and Nasty tag along and have them throw barbs at each other. 

[melkathi]

I wonder how Bruce's mod isntalling is going

[BruceVC]

7 minutes ago, melkathi said:

I wonder how Bruce's mod isntalling is going

I went out for lunch today with my family so I am still busy installing mods. I will finish tomorrow or so, its going slow but I am checking each mod to be consistent 

[melkathi]

I don't know what you would even be installing. I don't think they had CBBE for Oblivion

[kanisatha]

I preferred Oblivion over Skyrim. But I think I only used one or two mods. I'm a mod minimalist.

[Wormerine]

22 hours ago, melkathi said:

I don't know what you would even be installing. I don't think they had CBBE for Oblivion

It diffenitely had a nude mode. When I played Oblivion I found modern underwear to be "unimmersive" so nude mod was one of the things I unstalled. It.... didn't have the effect I was looking for. 

[Chilloutman]

Only thing I used for Oblivion was OOO so I got rid of level scaling 

[melkathi]

1 hour ago, Wormerine said:

It diffenitely had a nude mode. When I played Oblivion I found modern underwear to be "unimmersive" so nude mod was one of the things I unstalled. It.... didn't have the effect I was looking for. 

Hah! I installed a nude mod and hair mods for Dragon Age: Origins.

The hair mod had an obvious effect. The nude mod I had because it had great skin texture on the character's face when taking screenshots. I had completely forgotten about the "nude" part.

Then I went back to Ostagar and found the crucified King. Who suddenly was nude