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

[melkathi]

I don't think they are even on the list of creatures likely to be summoned by evil wizard to eat you in a swimming pool

[BruceVC]

I have spent about 12 hours on Dredge and I'm about to go on the last quest because I have found the 5 items for the collector, its  fun 

 

I really like the fishing mechanics and how you find resources and upgrade your boat 

 

Great game, its a pity its so short 

 

 

Edited July 7 by BruceVC

[melkathi]

There is dlc that adds more stuff. But I spend enough time catching every type of mutant fish and unlocking all the paint jobs for my boat.

[Mamoulian War]

 

Goal nr. 6/2025 achieved

July 7, 00:45 – Star Ocean: The Divine Force has been finished today on Galaxy Difficulty on my PS4. My first playthrough has been done with Raymond and it ended with Laetitia's ending. The 6th game had IMHO the best story of the last three games for "modern" consoles, but on the other hand the Galaxy Difficulty has felt so easy, that I felt sometimes boredom, when the story has not been moving forward in a timely manner. Thankfully it has changed a little bit before the end, when at some areas even some mobs had made me a little bit of trouble. But this was also a side-effect of replacing a dedicated party healer with another party member, which would be almost impossible to do in previous games, as the healing items has been always pretty expensive. The only thing which I had to watch out for, was to purchase enough of them every time, I have visited a city. In the end I had enough fun to recommend the game to anyone who likes JRPGs, as it is worthy addition to Star Ocean franchise, but keep in mind, you should start at Universe Difficulty to enjoy it better.

[BruceVC]

30 minutes ago, melkathi said:

There is dlc that adds more stuff. But I spend enough time catching every type of mutant fish and unlocking all the paint jobs for my boat.

Yes, the fishing is loads of fun and I enjoy the whole economy around the fishing. I end up making fishing decisions using the Encyclopedia and seeing how I can make the most money 

 

Its a entertaining   game and it provided the perfect way for me to disconnect from the last 450 hours of completing the  2 Pathfinder games 

So great recommendation, well done Melkie 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 7 by BruceVC

[BruceVC]

@melkathi

Melkie its over,  I threw  the book away and I ended up getting gobbled up by a giant sea monster !!!!   Game over

You didnt warn me, I dont know if I will ever be able to go into the sea again 

[melkathi]

Yeah, there is no happy ending in Dredge

Still better than the alternative.

 

I felt the story was quite well done, though by the time you get to the ending, taking the selfish option didn't make much sense to me.

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, melkathi said:

Yeah, there is no happy ending in Dredge

Still better than the alternative.

 

I felt the story was quite well done, though by the time you get to the ending, taking the selfish option didn't make much sense to me.

Yes, to be honest I ended up with the " bad " ending first 

And thats much worse than what happened with the good ending. The  overall narrative  was very clever and unexpected 

 

[majestic]

Eh, maybe you should play SOMA if you haven't already. The gameplay is a bit lackluster, but it's a great sci-fi story.  

[BruceVC]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

Eh, maybe you should play SOMA if you haven't already. The gameplay is a bit lackluster, but it's a great sci-fi story.  

I had never heard of this game but it looks good for a horror adventure game

I like Frictional Games, I have played  most of the Amnesia games so I will keep this one in mind 

 

[melkathi]

By the way, that sea monster will also eat you if you try to sail away from the game area

[Raithe]

De-stressing from life and dealing with house valuation and the work juggle by grinding survival on Arrakis in Dune Awakening.

Solo'ing around and exploring the world as I can.

[kanisatha]

23 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I dont know if I will ever be able to go into the sea again

Heh. Well it is the 50th anniversary of the movie Jaws, so the whole "I'm never going into the sea again" thing makes sense.

[BruceVC]

Im playing Darkwood now, its another Indie game and its  a horror  survival game 

There is very little hand holding about what you suppose to do but Im working it out and I have referenced some high-level " no spoiler " game guides about starting tips and advice 

I dont mind applying myself to understanding  the objectives  of any game but I prefer some basic guidance 

 

 

[Malcador]

Lacuna.  Nice style to the game, the investigation puzzles are simple but good enough.  Definitely a game to grab on sale

[majestic]

Done with D4 season nine. Hydra sorcerers are hilariously overpowered. Squishy compared to other classes, but with that kill speed it's fine. Once again made the mistake of playing a melee character in with the current T4 meta, so it took me a couple days longer than it would otherwise. Not significantly better than the last season, but less much annoying journey elements. With Blizzard removing the secret achievement for completing all the elements, I can also pretty much just leave the grindy ones. Don't really care about running a ton of nightmare dungeons. 

Edited July 13 by majestic

[Malcador]

Farming for rare mounts in WoW, Midnight is eluding me even after 13 runs this week. But at least got 2/3 of the Dragon Soul mounts and A'lar, doing the fomer is tedious with the RP segments but the amateurish voice acting does give me a bit of a laugh.   Will farm for the Antorus demon mount for no real reason, guess will look cool with my warlock

Also starting D4, being crazy and doing something other than a rogue this season.

[BruceVC]

Im about 20 hours into Darkwood and its good fun

Its a tough horror survival and its definitely not for the faint hearted

You basically  have these  3 main map areas and you can  only save in your hideout and there is 1 hideout per region. So if you die anywhere you respawn back in your hideout and you lose a percentage of your items in your inventory which you can go back and get 

Your survival is very dependant on crafting items and upgrading items so you constantly looking for resources

And then at night you have to go back to your hideout where you get attacked randomly by about 5-6 different monsters in one night. So you might  get attacked by human savages one night, or dogs, or undead banshee creatures and each requires a different strategy to survive the night. I mostly die at night unless its human savages 

And the map is RNG so when you explore the 3 regions you dont know where specific landmarks are until you find them and then they marked. But the map never tells you where you are unless you at a landmark so you have to use the main screen , like a fallen tree, to navigate 

Its very hard but exhilarating  when you survive a night 

Overall, a very entertaining horror survival game 

 

 

 

[BruceVC]

I completed Darkwood after about 45 hours

Its one of the best and most  exciting horror, survival games I have ever played and Im going to officially make it a " BruceVC must play game " 

It gets  a solid 73/100 on the " BruceVC game rating system " 

Darkwood has one of the best crafting systems around finding resources I have ever seen, you need crafting to survive but until the last  map you are always short of resources so you have to constantly make tough decisions around what to craft and you always exploring to find items 

Then the overall narrative is very dark, I got a little confused around some parts but then I used some  high-level guides for pointers 

The  " surviving each night " is probably the most part terrifying part of the game because you have to prepare your hideout for the the inevitable attacks from enemies but you dont know what types of creatures will attack so nothing is predictable 

But excellent indie game 

I am now playing King Arthur : Knights Tale 

I have played all the previous Neocore King Arthur games and I loved them. I am enjoying it so far, its fun but not fantastic

I dont know how I feel about the healing mechanics, it seems limited. You lose vitality and you cant use a knight  in  a mission while he is healing

Anyway I will comment more on this game when I have progressed further, Im only level 4 

 

 

 

 

[Malcador]

Got my D4 Sorc to T1.  Lighting build is fun, hydra carrying me though, but all summed up I can't see anything with the flames, falling stars and electricity shooting everywhere.   Die a lot to boss effects for that reason  

[melkathi]

Finished Backpack Hero. Took me about 70 hours because I was trying to research everything (still have four items to research) and do the various side missions (haven't done them all because Tote is just too luck based).

Overall a cute, fun little rogue like.

I don't enjoy the playstyle of 2 of the 5 characters, so I'll overcome the completionist in me and call it done