What are you playing now?

[Malcador]

Bouncing between Splinter Cell and Arma 3. Latter sure is pretty, seems to run a bit smoother on my machine than Arma 2 did, but will have to try larger battles to compare. Liking the stance adjustment system, although takes some getting used to.

[cyberarmy]

Moved onto SC2 Heart of the Swarm. Pretty easy campaign even on hard, some connection problems and heavly cannoned stroyline...

[SadExchange]

Bouncing back and forth between Tomb Raider, Path of Exile, Sword of the Stars: The Pit, and just a hint of Sim City.  If anyone else is playing Sim City, and you need someone to build with, let me.  Just learning.

[Gorgon]

Finished Tomb Raider in a day. Not bad. Overall very enjoyable but also let down by Eidos not bothering with a real melee system but QTEing their way out of it just like DX Human Revolution. This made the boss fights in particular really annoying to get past. Press ▲ to not die, then press ▀  to counter but only after the eyesore prompt in the middle of the screen turns red, and if you don't know what ▀ corresponds to on the PC you're **** out of luck.  When did it become ok to reduce combat to a series of tests judging your ability to follow directions shown on the screen ?. Fortunately you could just shoot most everything else, but the fear of getting caught up in a QTE and not knowing what buttons to mash was constant.

 

Ironically it worked just fine when you had just two or three attack and evade moves in the begining.

[AwesomeOcelot]

...but QTEing their way out of it just like DX Human Revolution.

Human Revolution didn't have QTE melee, they were canned animations like stealth kills in most games now. My opinion on it is that well, it's certainly better than bad melee gameplay, especially since it's optional. Tomb Raider on the other hand is full of QTE.

[Gorgon]

And they were introduced as improvements. You actually bought skills that made melee suck. QTEs worked wonderfully in all the jumping puzzles and various tumbling actions but they just didn't know when to stop.

[LadyCrimson]

I played AoE1 a lot more than AoE2, so I wasn't initially interested (plus I still have my original discs for both games), but that AoE 2 HD looks pretty sweet. Still, not sure it's worth $20.

 

Hubs and I finally got a 2nd pair of BL2 chrs. to lvl 50/beat PT2. Usually we get to early/mid-40's and end up making new chrs. Siren/Commando still best for us, regardless who plays who. Heard the next DLC will have a new class, which had me interested, until I learned it would likely be melee-ish oriented (perhaps more like Brick?). Altho, I might like that better than Zero.

 

Looked around on Steam, at my backlog, at old games in the closest....still not interested in playing anything else (and BL2 still only because of co-op w/hubs).

[Yes Man]

I just beat Telltale's The Walking Dead.

 

Overall it was a great game, it had some of the best characters I've seen, as well as having some decisions that were actually difficult to make. I hope Season 2 is just as good.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Yes Man

[Gorgon]

 

...but QTEing their way out of it just like DX Human Revolution.

Human Revolution didn't have QTE melee, they were canned animations like stealth kills in most games now. My opinion on it is that well, it's certainly better than bad melee gameplay, especially since it's optional. Tomb Raider on the other hand is full of QTE.

Imagine I said Hitman absolution instead

[Starwars]

Been playing Civ V for a long while. One thing I enjoy about Civ V in particular is that, given the leaders' various strengths and bonuses, you can kinda "roleplay" them. I normally don't play very warlike, but I enjoy choosing Random leader and just going with what I get.

 

Also started up yet another playthrough of New Vegas. Funny thing happened fairly early on. Had done the Goodsprings stuff and figured I'd head up to Sloan for a bit. When in the middle of Sloan, I suddenly noticed people around me picking up their guns, and knowing what the wildlife around that area is like... Well, I ran as fast as I could back towards the Goodsprings direction. As I ran like a mad man, I looked back and saw what I believe (it was in the distance) the Alpha Male Deathclaw wrecking the poor folks there.

 

Love it when things like that just happens.

[alanschu]

Random leader is the only way to play Civ 5 :D

[entrerix]

playing heart of the swarm

 

its good, i like tyranids

 

story is overblown and melodramatic and heavy handed and ham fisted, the story in starcraft 1 was just as lame but was handled much more succinctly

[AGX-17]

Started The Witcher last night. It's alright, I guess. I really don't see why it has such a rabid fanboy base. The combat so far has been rather dull and repetetive (maybe this will change with more levelling, but as it stands it's almost like a real-time with pause dumbed-down version of Mario RPG's timed attack system,) the story isn't particularly engrossing and the male-gaze perspective is just obscene. I'll keep playing it until the other 4 GOG.com 80% off games finish downloading, or until it actually becomes really interesting.

 

The fact that the first three sidequests available are generic MMO fetch quests is not a good sign. When Witcher fanboys started their vitriol campaign against Dragon Age 2, I was ambivalent because the more someone feels the need to denigrate others/another product, it shows they're afraid of it. Thus far, DA2 is still looking to come out on top of The Witcher, despite its massive, myriad flaws. Not a good sign, either.

Edited March 14, 2013 by AGX-17

[Starwars]

I'm definitely not a rabid fan of the Witcher myself, I find it to be a pretty flawed game. But the more interesting parts of the game come after the first Act.

 

Still, I think the one thing that the Witcher does better than most RPGs, or just most games in general, is atmosphere. There is something about the setting, the music, the graphics, the presentation that really drew me in in the first game. So many things that annoyed the hell out of me in that game, yet somehow... I still ended up kinda liking it in some way. Pretty polarizing game for me.

 

DA2 is the game that is popular to slam on (rightfully so, maybe especially because of what it represents, I'm not fond of the game myself), it's just an easy target for all the angry internet people. Many people just view it as the work of Satan without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. Again, internet.

[Zoraptor]

I wouldn't have thought the most vitriolic DA2 opinions were from Witcher fanboys anyway, they're far more likely to be Jilted Bioware Fans or Professional EA Haters.

 

Witcher may get used a bit as a comparison but if you have haters hating they're not going to be reasonable and say "The Witcher has some very good and well designed quests that require some actual thinking, but it does have a fair few kill x or fetch and carry quests as well which often involve trudging over the same areas", they're going to talk about the well designed quests and how DA2 definitely had none of those, nosiree, its quests were all complete asterisks, that nasty Laidlaw chap kept going on about awesome Bhutan too (been there, nice but not awesome so false advertising!!!) and my dog died immediately after playing- coincidence? I think not!

[HoonDing]

Witcher fanboys usually compare DA2 with Twitcher 2, though.

[GhostofAnakin]

This past little session of playing Dead Space 3 emphasized why I HATE these stupid games with autosave functions and no manual save at any point.

 

I'd started a mission, knowing I had 15 minutes before I had to go.  No problem, I thought.  Surely there'd be an opportunity sometime within the next 15 minutes to save and exit.  But nope, the mission just kept going and going with no autosave icon appearing.  So here I am, 15 minutes later and still my game hasn't saved, and I'm stuck between exiting (it will save, but all the way back to the last autosave, which was well before I started the mission) or playing on until I finally get an autosave.  So I play on for another 10 minutes, FINISH the mission, and I STILL don't get an autosave.

 

Frankly, it's ridiculous.  Games nowadays should allow for saving at any point.  None of this autosave at certain points BS, where if you quit you'll have to redo all that stuff after the last autosave.

[Keyrock]

Started The Witcher last night. It's alright, I guess. I really don't see why it has such a rabid fanboy base. The combat so far has been rather dull and repetetive (maybe this will change with more levelling, but as it stands it's almost like a real-time with pause dumbed-down version of Mario RPG's timed attack system,) the story isn't particularly engrossing and the male-gaze perspective is just obscene. I'll keep playing it until the other 4 GOG.com 80% off games finish downloading, or until it actually becomes really interesting.

 

The fact that the first three sidequests available are generic MMO fetch quests is not a good sign. When Witcher fanboys started their vitriol campaign against Dragon Age 2, I was ambivalent because the more someone feels the need to denigrate others/another product, it shows they're afraid of it. Thus far, DA2 is still looking to come out on top of The Witcher, despite its massive, myriad flaws. Not a good sign, either.

The combat doesn't really get much better if at all, it's easily the weakest part of that game.  What made me a fan of that game was the way it subverted some fantasy tropes (albeit, it definitely goes along with others), but mostly it was seeing the consequence of a decision I made 5 hours earlier come slapping me in face in a way I didn't see coming.

[Malcador]

Started The Witcher last night. It's alright, I guess. I really don't see why it has such a rabid fanboy base. The combat so far has been rather dull and repetetive (maybe this will change with more levelling, but as it stands it's almost like a real-time with pause dumbed-down version of Mario RPG's timed attack system,) the story isn't particularly engrossing and the male-gaze perspective is just obscene. I'll keep playing it until the other 4 GOG.com 80% off games finish downloading, or until it actually becomes really interesting.

 

The fact that the first three sidequests available are generic MMO fetch quests is not a good sign. When Witcher fanboys started their vitriol campaign against Dragon Age 2, I was ambivalent because the more someone feels the need to denigrate others/another product, it shows they're afraid of it. Thus far, DA2 is still looking to come out on top of The Witcher, despite its massive, myriad flaws. Not a good sign, either.

 

Think you'd need to play Witcher 2 for most of the above to work, other than the side quests I suppose - does make sense for a Witcher to do a job to kill X of Y monsters for money, but second game has some more interesting ones.  Combat isn't going to change much as you go on, the group styles get more intricate I suppose and you do become a wrecking machine naturally at the end.   

 

Does remind me I should play DA2 sometime though.

Random leader is the only way to play Civ 5 :D

Rome or nothing! Edited March 14, 2013 by Malcador

[Tale]

When I actually play a game lately, it's Starcraft 2 Wings of Liberty. I expect Heart of the Swarm to arrive tomorrow. I won't have completed my Wings of Liberty replay by then, sadly, as I keep getting distracted by the GoT blu-rays.

[Katphood]

I recieved Blackwell Deception as a gift on steam but it seems that the game is actually the last episode in the Blackwell series. Now I have to buy the other 3 episodes...and they cost 4.99 each! 

 

 

...Goddammit!

[Malcador]

Also, any of you lot want an Arma 3 Alpha invite ? I guess I'll need your Steam IDs.

[AGX-17]

I wouldn't have thought the most vitriolic DA2 opinions were from Witcher fanboys anyway, they're far more likely to be Jilted Bioware Fans or Professional EA Haters.

 

Witcher may get used a bit as a comparison but if you have haters hating they're not going to be reasonable and say "The Witcher has some very good and well designed quests that require some actual thinking, but it does have a fair few kill x or fetch and carry quests as well which often involve trudging over the same areas", they're going to talk about the well designed quests and how DA2 definitely had none of those, nosiree, its quests were all complete asterisks, that nasty Laidlaw chap kept going on about awesome Bhutan too (been there, nice but not awesome so false advertising!!!) and my dog died immediately after playing- coincidence? I think not!

On all the sites I frequented when the two games were released, it was about 70% Witcher fans hurling vitriol at the then-unreleased DA2 and about a 50/50 split between Biodrones claiming DA2 would be the best RPG ever and fans of DAO who were outraged by the sequel's promised changes.

 

Anyway, about to try "KING'S BOUNTY CROSSWORLDS GOTY." No familiarity with the title, but it was $2.00 and had better review scores than most of the other games in the sale. Now downloading Alan Wake (which flew under my radar completely until about a year ago, since it didn't hit PC until 2 years after its original ecksbawcks release.)

[Keyrock]

I recieved Blackwell Deception as a gift on steam but it seems that the game is actually the last episode in the Blackwell series. Now I have to buy the other 3 episodes...and they cost 4.99 each! 

 

 

...Goddammit!

They're making a 5th one.

[Serrano]

I think/hope they may do more Blackwell games after the 5th as well, the story twist at the end of Deception was pretty large and open ended.