What are you Playing Now? - What doesn't kill you, gives you XP

[Hawke64]

Elden Ring. Finally killed Malenia. Lord of Blood's Exultation (the power-up on bleed talisman), Morgott's Curved Sword, and the mimic tear ash were the most important aspects of it. Somehow, the mimic and I were able to stagger the boss relatively reliably. The final battle was very impressive in terms of visual and audio design, though the boss' moveset in the second phase was rather annoying - I spent most of the time chasing the boss.

Overall, I did not dislike Elden Ring as I did Sekiro or Mortal Shell, but it was less enjoyable than Dark Souls (1, 2, SotFS, 3, Remaster) due to the open world structure and the speed of the game combined with the controls. Though, the visual and audio design are excellent.

[LadyCrimson]

It was free, and I can like hidden-object challenges, so I tried it. It was cute, but it took me like six minutes, no hints used. Not even remotely a challenge, and only one picture/level. Once completed you can try to "speed run" it, but not much point to that imo.
It looks like it wants to be a series, with others being a dollar. But seemingly same format, with each being one image. Maybe if it was 15-20 images and difficulty upped a bit, such might be worth a dollar. >.>   Just my view, ofc.

The art and meows when you find/click on a cat was cute tho.  Edit: actually, I'd probably like the series more as a pencil coloring book.

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Theonlygarby]

I got the urge to play Daiblo 1.  So I bought it on gog.com

It's a nice nestolgia kick.  The voiced lines are still seared into my mind from when i was like 12. 

However im playing it alone, so no one is trying to kill you, or trick you into giving them items to dupe and then just leaving.  so it's missing that memory.

 

I probably won't get too far.  But it was cheap and has given me a couple hours of enjoyment.

[LadyCrimson]

^ I still like to pull out Diablo1 once in a while. Although I also tend to play it for a few hours then go back to ignoring it. Running through the early levels with the squishy Sorcerer is always fun tho. I mean, it didn't take long (some hours) before the Sorc was an OP'd, teleporting, chain lighting, fireballing powerhouse, but those early more open MP levels. Having the Skeleton King out in the open to chase you all over the place. Good times.  The fact I could play the MP levels offline/solo was appealing back then. D1's quest-campaign was fun, but I liked the MP design better. Although one couldn't leave all your gold on the ground/exit the game, like in SP. Heh.

Edited August 19, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[BruceVC]

I completed King Arthur Wargame after 100 hours and it was an excellent RTS\ RPG experience

I was pleasantly surprised I did complete it because I read several comments on Steam about it being too hard or the mechanics being unbalanced. Overall I played the game with the following approach

• I played on beginner 
• I chose Rightful, Old Faith and I aligned with the Seelie 
• I used my knights and there spells effectively and I included Lancelot, Green Knight and Merlin in my group
• I learnt how the economy mechanics work because that makes a huge difference to stability and revenue generation in your provinces which is critical for having a well resourced army 

But once you understand the combat mechanics its really makes sense and the game is incredibly fun. It gets a solid 70/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system "

I enjoyed it so much I started playing KA2 yesterday, its different in some ways and I will do an update later once I have completed more of the narrative 

 

 

 

[melkathi]

Don't forget to play the prologue.

[BruceVC]

1 minute ago, melkathi said:

Don't forget to play the prologue.

Yes I am on that and I can guess how its going to unfold. I am seeing my well-meaning  Romans descend into the dark side and I noticed this when I brought back the 9th legion from the dead  and conquered the Sentinel lands 

Once I have completed the prologue I can confirm what I think is going to happen and if so its an excellent narrative around the prologue and who the " bad guys " are 

[melkathi]

And then you play the main game which completely ignores the prologue and has no connection to it whatsoever

[Malcador]

Finished There Is No Game.  Was okay, even if the humour does get rather worn in many cases.  I did not like the act riffing on how terrible free to play games, was annoying as it stayed too long, I get F2P games suck, hence why I wasn't playing one.  Also unskippable dialogues where the narrator summarizes what I did with surprise or other lines I can read rather than listen to are a negative.

 

[Hawke64]

Started Stray Gods. It is semi-interactive musical, though I would not call it "Roleplaying". The VA is actually good, the lyrics vary from "There is no inertia in the ocean" to decent. The graphics and visual style consist of mostly 2D images with light animations, but it is expressive and readable. The main personality trait seems to be locked in the first song, which was not obvious and is not convenient. The game uses auto-saving into a single slot (3 slots in total).

[Keyrock]

What I've noticed about the worlds in Remnant 2 is that the procedurally generated worlds seem less procedurally generated than anticipated. As I'm running through a second version of Yaesha in adventure mode, a lot of the maps feel familiar. There are some areas I never visited before that I can now go through in adventure mode, but the areas I have already been through look very similar. There are some changes in the layout of the levels , but otherwise the levels seem nearly identical.

[Mamoulian War]

After few day of break, I went for more Deep Sky Derelicts. The game has due to it's nature strange difficulty spikes. Sometimes after a lot of easy-peasy encounters, you get obliterated in few rounds in the next one. Especially when you encounter Soulmorphs. I got first two station defense encounters, and the second one was really problematic to win. Definitely needed more than 5 attempts to win it. Still having fun, still feeling sometimes repetition. I have unlocked 3rd tier of derelicts and spent 22 hours with it so far.

[Keyrock]

I defeated Legion, an optional boss in Remnant 2. It was a really good boss fight, very well designed. I've been impressed with the boss fights in this game, they all feel very different and many of them have interesting mechanics, that goes for the special enemies, champions, if you will, too. Some lesser and/or lazier devs just go the route of making bosses colossal bullet sponges; the lazy way of making a boss fight feel like a monumental task is just to give them a metric ****ton of HP. Not here. Bosses (and some special enemies) are challenging because they have a gimmick (sometimes more than one). I won't spoil anything, but on my first 3 attempts fighting Legion I got OBLITERATED. i don't think I ever got Legion down to even half health. On my 4th attempt I figured out the gimmick and beat Legion on the next attempt after that. It was no cake walk even when I understood what I had to do, but it was no longer the seemingly insurmountable challenge. Gunfire Games know what they're doing, this is an expertly crafted game.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Keyrock

[Hawke64]

Finished Stray Gods. It is an interesting musical/visual novel and a decent murder mystery (providing that the player can guess the murderer, but not the motive or the weapon, quite quickly, the MC is basically a bard, there is no typical evidence analysis). The romance subplot was connected to the main one without overshadowing it. There are some plot holes, but nothing critical, though the lack of fail states (accusing a wrong suspect or failing to obtain evidence or dying) or early endings (finding the murderer through unconventional options) are somehow disappointing. The visual design is excellent, from character art to location design to the minimalistic animations. The sound and VA are good overall and the branching songs are very impressive, though there are issues with different volume for different lines even within the same dialogue. The manual saving via Windows Explorer was rather annoying and could have been implemented in-game.

Edit. The second personality trait (out of 3) can be chosen at the beginning of Act 3.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Hawke64

[Malcador]

Slipstream 5000.  Fun little game, on Hard it is annoying to just blasted into ineffectiveness by the AI.  Although I did win the tournament in the end - the last race they all seem to give up or something. 

[Gorth]

The new Guild Wars 2 expansion (Secrets of The Obscure) launched yesterday. I guess that is going to put it's teeth (and tentacles judging by the spoilers and previews) into my flesh the next week or two. Sucks to be you JA3...

 

[BruceVC]

Im about 30 hours into KA2 and its fun. They changed several of the mechanics from KA1 and I dont necessarily think they all  create a better overall gaming experience but they not terrible changes 

The economic system is dumbed  down and  simpler and there is now a magic shield that you need to consider in every battle but I am now comfortable with that. And I am enjoying the lore and overall changes to the RPG elements around how your knights go on quests 

Also they added artifact crafting which is a good idea 

But its a good sequel, I will comment further once I have completed it 

 

[BruceVC]

I completed King Arthur Wargame 2 after 50 hours, I was surprised how much shorter the overall narrative was compared to KA1. I mentioned previously in KA2 they changed certain mechanics and I dont think some of them made the game better but things like artifact crafting is fun and useful and then you can train more units like monsters which adds variety to overall battles and your strategies

KA2 gets a 60/100 on the " BruceVC game rating system" and in summary its not as good as KA1 but its still worth playing if you enjoy RTS and RPG hybrids

[melkathi]

So what is next?

The KA1 DLC campaigns?

The KA1 Fallen Champions spin off?

Or King Arthur: Knight's Tale the turn based RPG?

[BruceVC]

24 minutes ago, melkathi said:

So what is next?

The KA1 DLC campaigns?

The KA1 Fallen Champions spin off?

Or King Arthur: Knight's Tale the turn based RPG?

Good question, I dont think I am going to play the KA1 DLC because I have completed both main games now and I am happy with the amount of time I spent playing an RTS. I have that gaming rule where I select different types of genres every 2-3 games so I dont become bored 

And Im seriously considering Fallout 1, I have never played it. And that brings me to the next part of my post. I was doing some research around recommended mods for FO1 and I came across this link which shocked me  @Lexx this is going to upset you but someone out there is copying your name and even your avatar picture. Its outrageous and you should sue or at the  very least protest !!!

https://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/fallout-et-tu-release-v1-8.218045/

 

 

[melkathi]

Knights Tale is a different genre. You run around with a party of 4 Knights and beat up undead, Picts and fomorii. Also undead Picts...

[BruceVC]

32 minutes ago, melkathi said:

Knights Tale is a different genre. You run around with a party of 4 Knights and beat up undead, Picts and fomorii. Also undead Picts...

It does look good, I came across it several times when I was searching for " King Arthur RPG " 

I will definitely add it my list of next games. How did you find it compared to KA Wargame, I realize they different but Im still interested?

What score out of 100 would you give it?

 

[melkathi]

As gameplay goes, Neocore did something unheard of for many early access Devs: listen to feedback.

I strongly disliked early builds, but the release version I had more fun with than I expected. Played the game through once. I don't know if I'll return for a second play through, but I am not much interested in a Christian run and not at all interested in a tyrant run.

My main problem is that the game has the biggest disconnect between writing and gameplay you ever encountered in gaming. The premise is that Mordred and King Arthur kill eachother, and when Arthur's body is sent to Avalon, something goes wrong and the dead can't rest. Nobody dies. The game has permadeath of your characters. Also, people get killed the all the time. For me this takes away some enjoyment. Other people won't care.

 

I'd rate it somewhere between KA1 and 2. So with the BruceVC game scoring system that should work out at 65, with possibly higher for anyone who isn't bothered by that story problem.

One of the good things is the many characters who can join you in Camelot.

[Mamoulian War]

Playing more Deep Sky Derelicts. I have reached the Max Level with all characters, and I have found the way to the Mothership During the voyage, I was able to get some very rare achievements, but missed one, which I wanted to go through And I am not able to find a way how to find last missing quest, which is required for it. Well we'll see how it will go tomorrow. I will give it one more chance, and if not lucky, I will go to the Mothership to follow the story.

[BruceVC]

12 hours ago, melkathi said:

As gameplay goes, Neocore did something unheard of for many early access Devs: listen to feedback.

I strongly disliked early builds, but the release version I had more fun with than I expected. Played the game through once. I don't know if I'll return for a second play through, but I am not much interested in a Christian run and not at all interested in a tyrant run.

My main problem is that the game has the biggest disconnect between writing and gameplay you ever encountered in gaming. The premise is that Mordred and King Arthur kill eachother, and when Arthur's body is sent to Avalon, something goes wrong and the dead can't rest. Nobody dies. The game has permadeath of your characters. Also, people get killed the all the time. For me this takes away some enjoyment. Other people won't care.

 

I'd rate it somewhere between KA1 and 2. So with the BruceVC game scoring system that should work out at 65, with possibly higher for anyone who isn't bothered by that story problem.

One of the good things is the many characters who can join you in Camelot.

Im leaving for a work trip on Wednesday for a week so I wont start Fallout 1 until I get back but I decided to kickoff the KA1 Druids DLC and its really good 

Its the same mechanics as KA1 but with additional features, I set my victory goals as conquering all provinces and  having to include 10 knights

Im still getting use to no Magic Shield from KA2 and I keep waiting for my initial spells to get blocked 

But I definitely prefer KA1 design and mechanics, its harder but more rewarding