What are you Playing Now? - the man sez Video games are bad for you - fight the man!

[Amentep]

Old thread:

 

[Hurlshort]

I'm oin the 3rd zone in Avowed and I think I rushed it a bit. I might go back to an earlier save and slow down. There are some ways to skip over steps in the main story, but I don't think I want to end it too fast. The game has some super hard decisions though.

[marwaha]

Right now, I'm on Diablo IV and Project Zomboid. Two perfect games to lose yourself for hours and prove that gaming is not just wasted time. It stimulates reflection, creativity and sometimes even strategy

[Lexx]

Finished Elden Ring. Never thought that would happen, tbh. Some of those endgame bosses were some real bs though and I'm not sure if I would be able to suffer through that again.

Kinda sad that the tree keeps burning after the end. Hoped it would stop. Game world looked more pretty before that happened, imo.

Went a little deeper into the DLC now. Haven't done much yet except getting my ass kicked by that giant fire thing.

[Malcador]

Played Full Throttle Remastered, forgot how short it is, I cleared the game in under 2 hours.  Amazing I remember the solutions to the puzzles even after 30 years, good to see I retain the important stuff. The Remastered audio sounds worse in some aspects, the art is bit eh, Maureen looks a little worse.  At least they nerfed the wall puzzle  

[melkathi]

But asphalt stays the same. It smells of Maureen and trouble.

[Malcador]

On to Monolith. Good to see Animation Arts having awful English voice acting.

  

21 hours ago, melkathi said:

But asphalt stays the same. It smells of Maureen and trouble.

I still quote the game these days. Though, have to remember to not do it around people with nose rings.

Edited March 11 by Malcador

[Hurlshort]

I finished Avowed and really enjoyed it. 

Next I moved onto Citizen Sleeper. Interesting dice-based narrative game. I was confused on the gameplay my first attempt (the mouse scroller let me move up and down the space station) but in my 2nd attempt, I really got into it. 

[Tale]

Finished Avowed a couple days ago and I also really liked it.

Then I went back to Final Fantasy VII Remake. Trying to catch up before going into Rebirth. Feels like I'm having a mid-life crisis playing a remake of a game from my childhood, what with Suikoden also just having come out again and calling my name.

[Malcador]

Well Monolith was a decent game, puzzles weren't too bad, I like having to read journals and check recordings.  The twist was creative enough, but doing that kind of thing probably will cheat some players.  The voice acting and cutscenes are poor though,. especially the old lady doctor and her kid.

Well worth 8 dollars though.

[LadyCrimson]

Still No Man's Sky.

--Did the recent expedition twice, so I can have two chrs. with access to the "purple star systems" without having to do the entire main quest+post game quests. This only works if you do expedition in a new save slot/new chr. Doesn't work to shortcut existing chr.
--Finally got my 1st ever chr thru the MQ (they were close already), so purple systems and the Lush Galaxy. So that means I now have 4 chrs with access to all planet/system types, and 2 chrs. that have access to original Euclid galaxy and the first Lush galaxy. I do not care about seeing the other 248 galaxies or whatever it is.

Thinking about doing the Expedition a 3rd time before it ends (7-10 hrs, for me), and keeping a copy of the save right after they finish and it's converted to a "normal" save, so it could be one that isn't meant to be permanently kept, where I keep copying it back to "start over".  Because this thing about no purple system access without MQ and post-quest is a serious (30+hr) drag for every new chr you might make. In a sandbox game. there should really be a game option to get the engine required in an early side quest or some other method.

Edited Thursday at 09:32 PM by LadyCrimson

[BruceVC]

I have completed both DLC for W3 after 170 hours and that means sadly my journey into the Witcher world is close to ending, I have now replayed all 3 Witcher games over the last 2 months with mods and the overall experience exceeded my expectations

Each game was excellent for different reasons but W3 is still my favourite

As far as W3 DLC were concerned, Heart of Stone was fun. I enjoyed killing the Toad King and O'Dimm was one of best enemies I have ever met. I ended up saving Oligierd and beating O'Dimm in the test at the end and I received Iris which is an excellent blade

But Blood and Wine was by far one of the best DLC I have ever played, the entire plot with Dettlaff was exciting and very thought provoking around narrative choices. I also like the whole feudal land of Toussaint, there were lots of new quests, monsters and activities

I had an interesting set of final outcomes for this DLC which I was happy with considering the reality
 

• Dettlaff didnt end up killing Sylvia because of the ribbon
• Sylvia ended up reconciling with Anna, good fairy tale ending
• I ended up having to fight Dettlaff, I didnt want to but I had no choice. The hardest battle of any Wither game but Im glad Regis survived because he is one of Geralts real friends
• Ciri came to visit me and she is doing well as Witcher

I highly recommend the entire Witcher series to anyone who likes a strong and enthralling narrative based RPG. The 3 games create this grand, connected story with lots of choices that influence the main narrative. The entire Witcher world with its lore is one of the best gaming franchises out there 

[Gorgon]

On 3/3/2025 at 1:28 PM, Humanoid said:

Yeah, I'm only halfway through the second zone so it may change by the end of the journey, but at the moment I feel it's a good game that won't live particularly long in my mind.

I mean, I suppose for me personally the ceiling was always going to be kind of low because of its modest ambitions - no matter how I build my character it'll always mostly be about clearing camps of enemies with very few non-combat exceptions. It doesn't even remotely attempt to be simulationist in terms of making a living, breathing gameworld, and that's fine - it just means it's not something I'd be looking to revisit in the future. The ideal Game Pass game, in a way.

One thing i noticed was that there is basically no texture swapping at all. You can zoom in on a geometric shape with no loss. I think it might be the first time I've seen it implemented ever. I can't wait for that to be the new normal.  But yeah, it's pretty, and responsive, except for unsolved micro stutter during exploration.  The visual presentation is really good, but it's also definitely missing a layer of mechanics in being a Skyrim or the like.  

 

 

[melkathi]

I'm playing Wonder Boy The Dragon's Trap.

Just defeated the Mummy Dragon and turned into a mouse.

So I stopped dying as a fire-spitting lizard-man and started dying as a tiny acrobatic mouse-man.

[Wormerine]

So, Avowed. It is a game you can play. It had very ubisoft feel to it - all the friction being sanded off to the point that the whole experience becomes just a flat, uneventful romp. Quite a few things that I thought were done great - combat, while shallow and repetitive has very strong fundamentals and outside some small jank is very satisfying. I liked exploration and balance between objective markers and discoverable secrets. Story was uneven and I felt it was underdeveloped. In spite of being relatively light on narrative there were also a few revelations being revealed multiple times - I assume that's becomes side activities and crit path overlap storywise and the game couldn't be asked to track which activities player completed. While story has some potential, it didn't feel like it was up to Obsidian's standard. It felt more like a traditional game story - something done in the later stages of development, trying to add some context to existing gameplay. I don't know if there is any truth in it, but it just didn't feel as cohesive as other Obsidian games.

Avowed felt to me like a Disney+ show. A bit stretched out, with some good ideas, awkward on-the-nose fan service. Not a bad time by any means, but also not a strong recommendation.

[Hawke64]

Quote

Within the next few weeks, we are going to be releasing a roadmap that will go over some of the plans we have that will be coming to the game over the upcoming year, so keep your eyes peeled!

I am not surprised, but still disappointed. With Microsoft as the publisher, Obsidian should have had enough resources to release an actually complete and reasonably bug-free title for once. Avowed is a single-player action-RPG, not a GaaS, so what's the point? Obsidian games have excellent writing and strong system design, so why was it not possible to use the funding for testing and optimisation? I guess, I should take it as an enocuragement to wait for all the patches and discounts.

I will not post it on the Avowed forum, as the situation might be well out of the developers' hands, so such feedback might be unactionable, but it is still unpleasant.

---

Finished El Paso, Elsewhere. It is an excellent third-person shooter with somewhat odd performance. I loved that the protagonist was noticing and commenting on things I, as a player, would have missed otherwise.

Started Tunic. I like the journal and the exploration, with the controls being fully rebindable.

Tried Jusant. The game thrown an error at launch ("Not all features are supported.."), which was probably related to the OS, rather than the GPU or its drivers, so I refunded. I've also tried the demo of Harmony (another DONTNOD game) and having mixed thoughts about it. I suppose, I like that the developers are trying to implement the concepts I find interesting, though the end results are mixed.

[Hurlshort]

I didn't get the impression that Avowed was overly buggy. I had one quest out of around a hundred that was a bit wonky. Other than that, it was the least buggy Obsidian title I've played. Outer Worlds was also pretty stable, so I suppose the engine deserves credit. FO:NV is still a buggy mess.

As for @Wormerine comparing it to a Ubisoft title, that's crazy. Ubisoft games have forced narratives and completely shallow storytelling. I don't know how you can even compare the two. I could not disagree with you more on that. 

If you want to call it a Disney+ show, I guess I get that more. Not that all Disney+ shows are the same, but the fan service and stretched out concepts make sense. As a fan, I tend to enjoy fan service. I do agree the game feels stretched out in places. It's like they created a foundation, but they weren't able to build out the whole house. That being said, I absolutely loved the foundation and the parts of the house that they built. I expect to see them continue to expand on this type of game. It's like Outer Worlds was the prototype and this is V1. 

Anyways, despite the lukewarm feeling of the posters here, it seems to be doing very well. It looks like it is outperforming Outer Worlds, so we should see some plenty more content to come. I enjoyed PoE 1 and 2, but Eora really came to life for me in the Living Lands, and I look forward to exploring more of it this way. 

[MrBrown]

I also felt it had very little bugs. Always hard to notice ones that have to do with numbers etc, but I'd say for games in general, it was very stable.

I'd prefer a PoE3, but I'd play Avowed2 as well.

[Wormerine]

8 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

I didn't get the impression that Avowed was overly buggy. I had one quest out of around a hundred that was a bit wonky. Other than that, it was the least buggy Obsidian title I've played. Outer Worlds was also pretty stable, so I suppose the engine deserves credit. FO:NV is still a buggy mess.

As for @Wormerine comparing it to a Ubisoft title, that's crazy. Ubisoft games have forced narratives and completely shallow storytelling. I don't know how you can even compare the two. I could not disagree with you more on that. 

If you want to call it a Disney+ show, I guess I get that more. Not that all Disney+ shows are the same, but the fan service and stretched out concepts make sense.

Yeah, as far as polish Avowed is in a very good state. I encountered one irritating hickup - if I attempted to summon a weapon and got interrupted that spell would become unavailable until a reload (I think what happens is: when you summon it the icon is greyed out, and when weapon summon time ends the icon changes into countdown till is usable again. If you attempt to summon it and get interrupted the skill still is greyed out, but because weapon was never summed the countdown never triggers.). I also felt through the ground and died once or twice, but that's about it. Vast majority of playtime was silky smooth, the game run mostly great (raytracing on), and I had no stutter which is rare for UE5 game.

When I mentioned Ubisoft I didn't mean the quality of the story, just playing experience. Running around open world, killing repetitive mobs that don't pose challenge, ticking off boxes by collecting stuff. The pacing - no spikes in difficulty or excitement, just same interactions with same enemies, be it side activities or main story.

I am still trying to figure out how I feel about Avowed - because there are quite a few things that I thought were well done. I found it very unimmersive, so I didn't enjoy it the way I am enjoying the Indiana Jones game right now. And combat, crafting, skills trees and items were too shallow for me to be engage with them as gameplay systems. The narrative has a promising outline, but it felt underdeveloped for me to care about character, events or choices. Avowed is consists of story, combat and exploration, I don't think neither of them are strong enough to carry the game alone, and I don't think they combine into a greater whole. I can imagine Avowed being a game that I really love, but it's not there for me.

Edited Sunday at 11:43 PM by Wormerine

[Wormerine]

7 hours ago, MrBrown said:

I'd prefer a PoE3, but I'd play Avowed2 as well.

 

[Humanoid]

Weirdly, both of the major bugs in Avowed that I encountered happened on my second day of playing, within 15 minutes of each other. Firstly there was a hard CTD when looting the chest in the watermill (the one which acts as a tutorial for upgrading your gear). Then shortly thereafter, while walking past the ruins of the wall on the way to rescue the mayor, I noticed various assets had stopped loading in, stuff like lampposts, enemies, then I fell through the world.

That said, I've been so consumed by a Civ4 binge that I haven't finished Emerald Stair yet. I also kinda don't like how gloomy it is relative to Dawnshore which might play a part in it.

[Sven_]

On 3/15/2025 at 9:54 PM, Wormerine said:

So, Avowed. It is a game you can play. It had very ubisoft feel to it - all the friction being sanded off to the point that the whole experience becomes just a flat, uneventful romp. Quite a few things that I thought were done great - combat, while shallow and repetitive has very strong fundamentals and outside some small jank is very satisfying. I liked exploration and balance between objective markers and discoverable secrets. Story was uneven and I felt it was underdeveloped. In spite of being relatively light on narrative there were also a few revelations being revealed multiple times - I assume that's becomes side activities and crit path overlap storywise and the game couldn't be asked to track which activities player completed. While story has some potential, it didn't feel like it was up to Obsidian's standard. It felt more like a traditional game story - something done in the later stages of development, trying to add some context to existing gameplay. I don't know if there is any truth in it, but it just didn't feel as cohesive as other Obsidian games.

Avowed felt to me like a Disney+ show. A bit stretched out, with some good ideas, awkward on-the-nose fan service. Not a bad time by any means, but also not a strong recommendation.

Avowed almost looks and sounds more like your typical Bioware move ("when you press a button..."), it even was CoOp prior to the reboot, too. In some ways, that's the least you'd expect of Obsidian. In other ways, well they started out by developing sequels to Bioware games (and Pillars was big time inspired by Bioware technology). I think I'm gonna spend some bucks on The White March now -- the one thing Pillars I haven't yet played. A New Vegas or Bloodlines-like in the Pillars-verse could be interesting. Maybe even something narrative-driven like Pentiment, a smaller scale production that has you playing as Thaos, with your actions shaping the world and characters around you during the course of centuries.

Edited 10 hours ago by Sven_

[Malcador]

Song of Farca nice little adventure game, simple mechanics and all but is pretty enjoyable so far. The PC sure causes damage with her actions, think I've caused 3 deaths, hah.   Nice of people to leave password hints in their rooms and offices near where I need to enter them.

 

 

[Wormerine]

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Few bugs, some of them rather frustrating (like bugged out NPC making quest progress impossible and having to reroll checkpoint to a previous state). But otherwise I loved this game. They nailed the assignment, and I am impressed by Todd and Co. at Machine games with how they portrayed Indiana experience thorough gameplay, rather than trying to imitate how those films are to watch, the way Uncharted games did. Puzzles, combat and stealth are all uncomplicated, they they blend nicely together. The game is a bit clunky at times, but I thought it was lots of fun, outside of few minor gripes. Setpiece moments where hit and miss for me. Some of them worked very well, some of them didn't. I also didn't enjoy the third zone nearly as much as the previous two - its traversal mechanic felt more cumbersome than fresh, which also lead me to less spontanious exploration and rely more on map markers. In dungeons they tried to make things more gamey, and I think it had negative impact - it underscored how clunky the game can be, and took me out of the experience a bit. One final criticism - it is a shame that the finale of the game is mostly cutscenes. Up to this point they managed to make the game very tactile and the ending being so very hands off felt underwhelming. Surely something more interesting could have been made than a bunch of cutscenes and an awkard fistfight.

Still, strong recommendation for any Indy fans.