What are you Playing Now? Volume XIX: The New Beginning of the End of the Middle

[Tale]

The Last of Us Part 1

Maybe my third or fourth playthrough, but first time on PC. Never actually finished Part 2 and decided it's time to do it. It's been long enough that I really don't remember some of this.

[Wormerine]

I didn't know there is a new Heroes of Might and Magic in works, and there is even an early demo to try out. 

It looks like it's being done on budget, but it is actually quite snappy, and seems like could be a nice entry to the series. As the series have been in limbo for a while, it is nice to see a return to form, though it might be a bit too conservative. HoM&M3 die hards might not be willing to move on at this point, and I am not sure how much new blood with a budget title like this one attract. 

[melkathi]

I have a game breaking bug with New Arc Line where the game crashes if I try to leave the area I am in. 

Personally I believe it is some resource leak that corrupts the character's save files. But I am not a dev.

 

I have put it aside for now and hope they fix it.

[Hawke64]

I have finished Promise Mascot Agency. I stand by my initial assessment - Saints Row without combat and all your gang members are mascots. 

I have started and finished Fear the Spotlight. It is a horror game, it is (surprisingly) shorter than I would like (~5 hours), but it does not overstay its welcome, so fine, I guess. It looks nice, the pacing is good, the puzzles are on the easier side. 

[melkathi]

I messed around with the graphics settings in New Arc Line and now it doesn't crash.

 

Which means I now had a "choice that matters" and I hate those. For me, ethically it is an easy choice - don't force the factory to replace the workers with automatons, because I don't want people to loose their jobs. But, that is the choice that benefits a magic playthrough and this is my Diesel Engineer...

[Theonlygarby]

I started over "those who rule" due to FOMO.  Turns out one of the people i thought was receuitable was not.  I did save him and let him live though, so maybe there will be a call back to it at some point.

 

I am stuck on a level I struggled hard with the first time.  If I just wanted to beat the level it would be no problem. It is the side objectives.

Main mission is "survive for 12 turns"  easy. 

Side missions:

"Save the villagers" this one gets me occasionally but for the most part it's easy to save them unless you get some bad RNG

 

The hard part comes with there being two boss type characters on opposite sides of the map.  These boss characters are holding useful items.  You don't have to kill them but FOMO.

 

You have to defend a church from waves of enemies coming from two directions.  All while pushing forward towards the item holding boss characters.  These boss characters are standing behind where the waves of enemies spawn in.

 

Even all this would be doable.  But 12 turns makes it very difficult.  You essentially have to get close enough by turn 11 to have the boss come out of his spot and attack you.  While hoping that does not kill any of your characters.

 

I have gotten close so many times but then an archer comes out and kills one of my characters and I have to restart.

 

The worst part is that you can't skip the enemies turn, so after failing my self imposed mission, I have to watch the rest of their dang turn before restarting.

 

Edit: also the AI is not stupid so they will attack the person closest to death

Edited Saturday at 09:43 PM by Theonlygarby

[melkathi]

So I have been looking at the task manager while playing New Arc Line. On average the game is around 2.600-4.100MB memory usage. When it loads a map it goes just above 11.000MB. That seems like a lot...

[BruceVC]

Im about 23 hours into Cyb2077 and Im really enjoying it

Firstly no serious or noticeable bugs, I have been able to complete every quest and do everything without any real problems

I am not a big player of the cyberpunk genre so the " hardest " part of the game has been learning how to effectively use all the new mechanics like quickhacks and braindances but once you understand them its simple. I enjoy the concept of implants and how they make a real difference in combat

I am enjoying all my adult mods, everything is working fine

I like the city and all the side activities and general NPC details, I havent used fast travel yet because I enjoy travelling and seeing the sights. They did an excellent job at making Night City seem alive and populated

And the NPC are interesting, I like there side-quests and potential Romance arcs

Further updates to follow once I have completed 50 hours 

[Wormerine]

Dragon Age: Veilguard was added to GamePass so I played it while I wait for Outer Worlds2. I thought it was pretty alright. Easily my favourite of Dragon Age sequels though it is not a high bar to pass.

Few complaints, sure. Tonally, it is a bit inconsistant - but that's something I would say about every Dragon Age game, but Origins. The game is probably quite a bit longer than it should have been (again, Dragon Age staple). Combat sucks and gets really boring - again nothing new to DA... though as it tries to pivit a bit more into action-RPG territory it hurts it by how clunky and unresponsive it feels. There is also artificiality around the quests and systems which I found really detracting from the narrative. I don't know if it's because game's origin as liveservice, or just current Bioware team sensibilities, but how game was structured, how quests were presented I felt really made it difficult to feel immersed in the narrative, and therefore care. 

But it is not all bad. Like Inquisition I think story has more potential than Veilguard takes advantage of - and I do feel they are playing loose with some established lore. But for a very casual and distanced DA player it felt like it actually paid off on many things that previous games were establishing. Companions were alright, and I quite enjoy some of their banter. Finale is pretty alright, if contrived at times.

I don't think it is a great game, but frankly best I have seen from Bioware since Mass Effect2 (didnt' play Andromeda nor Anthem though). I enjoyed most of it, but it's overstayed it's welcome and I am glad it is over.