What are you Playing Now? Whatever happens, at least we're out of that mudhole, Gilded Vale.

[Keyrock]

I'm (fashionably?) late to the party here, but Vampire Survivors just came out on Xbox and it's on Game Pass. This game is AWESOME. Now I understand why everyone went crazy for this when it first released on PC. This takes it back to the roots of video games. Games have evolved in all sorts of directions, encompassing all different types of experiences, and that's great. Once in a while, though, I just want to play something that's pure mindless fun and this is that. It's basically bullet hell, it's super simple, and it has roguelite elements. It's an absolute joy to play and it's helped by the terrific Castlevania-esque music. The quickest way to my heart is just make some music that sounds like it came out of a Castlevania game. Also, the enemies sound like popping corn when they die, which is an incredibly satisfying sound.

If you've not played this yet and you have Game Pass, do yourself a favor and try it. It's a small download (by today's standards), it looks like it could run on a potato, so you probably don't need a beefy gaming PC for it, and it's super fun.

Edited November 10, 2022 by Keyrock

[Sarex]

Playing god of war R for a couple of days now. So far more of the same, which is great in my book.

[Malcador]

Afterlife is still enjoyable, forgot how micro heavy it can be.  Also Hell needing more roads is an annoying money sink, will have to find the manual though - recalling something about how close punishments/rewards can be before negative effects apply

[Keyrock]

I've been playing Vampire Survivors so much that I've developed a blister on my thumb and I still can't stop playing. HELP ME.

[Mamoulian War]

Starting Chapter 6 in Final Fantasy XV. Still feeling the same about it, just one small positive thing, the bland battle system (warp-strike button mashing), has became little bit more sustainable, due to catchy battle music  

[Humanoid]

17 hours ago, Malcador said:

Also Hell needing more roads is an annoying money sink

Hell being just an eternal traffic jam, sounds about right.

[Malcador]

8 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Hell being just an eternal traffic jam, sounds about right.

It does! Just the mechanic. Hell having diversity as a bad thing is another amusing one. Found a manual, at least, so will have to pore it over.

Fun game, needs a remake.

[algroth]

Been a while since I've been playing games, but I figured I'd go back into it, starting by finally getting around to Divinity: Original Sin. And, uh... Hmm...

Response is rather mixed so far, for me. The combat was outright aggravating during the first section of the game, though it's been getting better as I've gradually learnt more about the game's mechanics and the likes. However, a lot of the writing and story is just preposterous, sometimes amusingly so but other times headachingly so. The story is a mish-mash of the worst Chosen One tropes, all to deliver a bunch of fluff that has staggeringly little to say, with motivations from the behalf of villains and auxiliary characters that makes no sense whatsoever. The voice acting is atrocious, everyone seems to be competing with one another to see how much of the scenery they can chew, stretching and accentuating every word of what is already often very flowery prose. Exploration and questing have been decent enough, on the other hand. Still, I'm not surprised so far that the recommendation so often seems to be to skip straight to D:OS2 (which I plan on getting to right after).

[Wormerine]

34 minutes ago, algroth said:

The combat was outright aggravating during the first section of the game, though it's been getting better as I've gradually learnt more about the game's mechanics and the likes. However, a lot of the writing and story is just preposterous, sometimes amusingly so but other times headachingly so.

Yes, it's good to play with a friend so you can laugh at the story and some NPCs. Cat puns are a bit more managable if you have someone you can groan with. D:OS2 is overall a better game, though I felt they made some unfortunate misteps with some of the combat mechanics. Writing and story got more attention though personally I wasn't a fan either.

[Hawke64]

9 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

Yes, it's good to play with a friend so you can laugh at the story and some NPCs. Cat puns are a bit more managable if you have someone you can groan with. D:OS2 is overall a better game, though I felt they made some unfortunate misteps with some of the combat mechanics. Writing and story got more attention though personally I wasn't a fan either.

Agreed, both are more enjoyable with friends. The combat system in D:OS2 was a hit-or-miss - a lot of opportunities for cheese/synergy, but one might dislike the reliance on crowd-control/armour. The story seemed to use the Chosen One trope, but still had some interesting moments.

Expeditions: Viking. Started the game. Realised that the primary stats cannot be changed after character creation and there are chance-based checks. On a positive note, it is possible to use non-lethal weapons in combat and the game acknowledges surviving opponents.

[Keyrock]

Ironically, combat was the only thing I liked about D:OS. It took FOREVER, but there was a lot of tactical flexibility.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Keyrock

[Humanoid]

There's also a very rigid order in which to tackle the various areas around the first town in order to get a remotely balanced experience. Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for level scaling or anything like that, but the way power scales with level means that at the early stages of the game, you can't really punch above your weight.

[BruceVC]

15 hours ago, algroth said:

Been a while since I've been playing games, but I figured I'd go back into it, starting by finally getting around to Divinity: Original Sin. And, uh... Hmm...

Response is rather mixed so far, for me. The combat was outright aggravating during the first section of the game, though it's been getting better as I've gradually learnt more about the game's mechanics and the likes. However, a lot of the writing and story is just preposterous, sometimes amusingly so but other times headachingly so. The story is a mish-mash of the worst Chosen One tropes, all to deliver a bunch of fluff that has staggeringly little to say, with motivations from the behalf of villains and auxiliary characters that makes no sense whatsoever. The voice acting is atrocious, everyone seems to be competing with one another to see how much of the scenery they can chew, stretching and accentuating every word of what is already often very flowery prose. Exploration and questing have been decent enough, on the other hand. Still, I'm not surprised so far that the recommendation so often seems to be to skip straight to D:OS2 (which I plan on getting to right after).

D:OS2 is an excellent game, it has great strategic combat and interesting party companions with worthwhile side quests

There are also  good mods you can load on Nexus 

 

[Keyrock]

I've beaten every stage in Vampire Survivors. I can confidently say that this is a legit GotY contender. Obviously, from a technical standpoint, VS isn't going to stack up against Elden Ring or Dad of War 2, but I personally weigh fun factor and engagement much more than any other factor, it's like 2/3 of the equation. This game is off the charts in the fun factor department, it's like a 14/10 and it hooked me like no game has hooked me in years. I still have a few things to unlock, some weapons to evolve, and perhaps a character or two to get. I almost never care about 100% completing games, I don't care about achievement and trophies, but in this case I'm going to try because it's an excuse to play it more.

[Hawke64]

10 hours ago, Humanoid said:

There's also a very rigid order in which to tackle the various areas around the first town in order to get a remotely balanced experience. Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for level scaling or anything like that, but the way power scales with level means that at the early stages of the game, you can't really punch above your weight.

Nothing can stand against barrelmancy/lava. There are a lot of ways to cheese your way through, but it makes the battles more gimmicky, than tactical.

Expeditions: Viking. Cleared the prologue. The time limit strongly reminds of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, as does the settlement/clan management screen, but, fortunately, no advisors or random events yet.

[TruckerJay]

18 hours ago, Keyrock said:

I've beaten every stage in Vampire Survivors. I can confidently say that this is a legit GotY contender. Obviously, from a technical standpoint, VS isn't going to stack up against Elden Ring or Dad of War 2, but I personally weigh fun factor and engagement much more than any other factor, it's like 2/3 of the equation. This game is off the charts in the fun factor department, it's like a 14/10 and it hooked me like no game has hooked me in years. I still have a few things to unlock, some weapons to evolve, and perhaps a character or two to get. I almost never care about 100% completing games, I don't care about achievement and trophies, but in this case I'm going to try because it's an excuse to play it more.

All of my friends telling me I HAVE to play it, but at this point I'm afraid of falling down the pit and completely ditching all other games to just play it  Especially after how many hours all of my buddies sank into it.

[algroth]

On 11/12/2022 at 9:28 PM, Wormerine said:

Yes, it's good to play with a friend so you can laugh at the story and some NPCs. Cat puns are a bit more managable if you have someone you can groan with. D:OS2 is overall a better game, though I felt they made some unfortunate misteps with some of the combat mechanics. Writing and story got more attention though personally I wasn't a fan either.

I suppose part of the reason I'm not as enthused is that I'm playing solo. The dual protagonist dynamics get especially weird as a result, I feel.

Also, in general the impression I'm getting is that while people tend to lump D:OS along with other isometric RPGs as part of the isometric RPG revival, what the game reminds me the most of is mid-00s RPGs along the lines of NWN2 and DAO. Which is a nice and nostalgic enough as well, I suppose.

[Wormerine]

50 minutes ago, algroth said:

Also, in general the impression I'm getting is that while people tend to lump D:OS along with other isometric RPGs as part of the isometric RPG revival

I mean it did came out as a kickstarter project, just like the other. Unlike the others it's not really aping any particular classic cRPG, which is a good thing IMO. Nostalgia is fine, but one needs to forward (or at least in some direction) from time to time.

My first experience was playing it with a friend for 10 hours in two days, and I loved every minute of it. D:OS1 is a coop RPG that you can play by yourself - and honestly, I love it for it. We don't have cRPGs revolving mainly around coop, and D:OS1 has been an interesting experiment. It also helps that having a friend along, not that easily seeing flaws in combat due to limited perspective (controlling half of a party) and just generally not paying that much attention due to alcohol consumption and focusing more on messing with your coop partner then the game. Splitting NPCs also helps - less silly writing to go through.

D:OS2 walked back on some coop ideas, and created more of a hybrid. Personally, I like it less for it. It is still not a great singleplayer RPG, but as it is trying I find it more difficult to forgive it now that they are trying. Good engine though - one of those "I wish Obsidian would made a sequel in this engine" games.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Wormerine

[Keyrock]

6 hours ago, TruckerJay said:

All of my friends telling me I HAVE to play it, but at this point I'm afraid of falling down the pit and completely ditching all other games to just play it  Especially after how many hours all of my buddies sank into it.

That's a definite danger. Vampire Survivors will consume your life. You can forget about playing anything else. It's video game crack cocaine.

[MrBrown]

Trying to play The Ascent, co-op.

Crashes all the time.

[LadyCrimson]

Gedonia has had a few patches to fix bugs, improve a few things ... haven't tested/played it tho.

I've had my eyeballs on Kingdoms Reborn, which looks like an interesting variation of city manager/planner+RTS that may have partially solved the "gets boring once you learn efficiency and reach a certain city size"  (via map goals that drastically change how one plans/builds and skills up, making working methods in one not workable in another, I guess, so more mission oriented per map ... plus factions or something).  But it's Early Access again and I'm still too fed up with e-a games that end up drastically different by release to want to be an early adopter, so ... still, one to keep an eye on.

Edited November 14, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[Tale]

It's been a busy and shameful month for me. Halloween saw me buy a bunch of horror games to try and get in the mood.

Played a bit of Signalis, lost some interest at the first boss fight. It's a great game, atmospheric and tense, but I'm not super into running in circles for a while waiting for weak spots to show up. Let alone repeating this process multiple times.

Played a bunch of Bendy and the Ink Machine after hearing all the people review it as if it's the best horror game of all time. It's alright. Like an Amnesia-lite. Kind of got bored of being chased by monsters and hiding in closets a few years ago. And I'm not super into whatever's going on to pick it up again.

The Eternal Cylinder. Another game that really failed to engage with me. Fascinating world they have, but the gameplay loop never grabbed me. Run from the cylinder for a while, then hunt down stuff to eat and mutate into the right form to progress. The finding the right mutation being the bulk of the game's puzzles. In my time with the game that's all there was.

The Entropy Center. This is the winner of the past month. It clearly takes a lot of inspiration from Portal and falls short, but not so short. It's not as funny, but the characters are charming, and the puzzles are great. Working out the logic and seeing that fail or succeed kept me going until I finished the whole thing. Only game I've completed in a couple months.

Dying Light. It was fun until I realized I'd seen all it had to throw at me 30 hours in and I wasn't even halfway done. Which paints me as a hypocrite for the next game.

Fallout 4. In my defense, I like building things, I like collecting suits of armor, and the gunplay is at least workable. These are not features Dying Light shared. I could spend way too much time building robots. And then going into new buildings to collect garbage to build more robots.

[Hawke64]

Ender Lilies. It feels heavier on backtracking than I am used to, but the area transitions and whether a location is fully looted are shown on the map. I think, I am missing at least 3-4 moves.
Defeated Ulv, the Mad Knight and acquired the wall-climbing ability. Also defeated/purified several mini-bosses. One of them was a dog who could damage the MC only by touch. On that note, touch damage in general should either not exist or be applied by the MC as well as the opponents.

[Hurlshort]

I've started playing Fallout New Vegas because I got it for free on GoG and it just seemed like a good idea. It was.

I still plan on starting a new character in LotRO when they release the new starter areas. My Captain is level 111 and battling despair in Mordor.

edit: I wish I had the willpower to make different decisions in New Vegas. Like, I always side with Good Springs and go to war with the Powder Gangers. I always attack Caesar's Legion almost immediately. I'm no good at the moral gray area stuff. 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Hurlshort

[Wormerine]

16 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

I'm no good at the moral gray area stuff. 

I think NV isn’t great in moral grey area stuff. It sometimes is, but a lot of choices feel difficult to justify.