What are you playing now

[Labadal]

Played a few hours of Skyrim. I spending more time with this game than I should. I've completed 102 Miscellaneous quests. I don't even care for them, but they get done while I explore. I just like walking around. It feels relaxing until combat kicks in.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Dunno, I tried Skyrim for a bit the other day at it was just like Oblivion but without all the greenery, so, uglier.

[TheChris92]

Playing Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. A good old 3D platformer with some mini-games here and there. I'm actually not a fan of min-games, but they are easy to complete and not very long. So far, I like it better than Sly 2 and 3, but not as much as Sly 1. After this, I will dive into Puppeteer. I tried the demo and enjoyed it. Both games, I got via PS+.

Blasphemy - Sly 2 will always be the best. I'll have to give this one a go. It's always worrisome when an excellent franchise gets handed over to new developers.

[Guest Slinky]

 

 

I do believe that I may have become a little too good at Severance: Blade of Darkness, i'm currently just starting the Island of Karum and have yet to take even one blow, then again when played correctly the Dwarf Naglfar is a little op. May have to restart as Tukaram or Sargon, maybe do a little tinkering with the stats file.

 

How's the dwarf op? I've given him only a quick test and to me he felt like the knight but just less agile, so I never went for a full playthrough with him.

 

 

It's the little fellows side dodge speed and distance, he's second only to the Amazon in these terms. Both Sargon and Tukaram are much slower to react and though the Barbarian covers around the same distance, the Knight covers far less. This necessitates playing Naglfar as a counter striker to my mind, and I find him to be extremely useful as such. Wait for the enemy to strike, dodge and then strike oneself.

 

Edit: The chaps offensive moveset helps as well, they may not be as damaging as the Barbarians but they are quick to pull off (even the specials) and recover from, meaning he's quite good at picking a foe apart.

 

 

Huh, I thought the dwarf was worse dodger than the knight, don't know why I've had that impression.

 

Going to test the little bastard myself when I get around installing the game. Maybe I'll like him even more than the knight which has been my choice of chopper in the past.

[Nonek]

Little tip: Don't use the Killer Axe, it's bugged, at that level I make use of the Orc Sword or the Sablazo. All of his weapons have very little range however so it pays to stay close to ones enemy.

[Labadal]

Dunno, I tried Skyrim for a bit the other day at it was just like Oblivion but without all the greenery, so, uglier.

I spent around 110 hours in Oblivion. I think Skyrim has it beat in wilderness environments. Dungeons are also slightly better. Not a big fan of the cities in Skyrim, though. They are boring.

 

 

Playing Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. A good old 3D platformer with some mini-games here and there. I'm actually not a fan of min-games, but they are easy to complete and not very long. So far, I like it better than Sly 2 and 3, but not as much as Sly 1. After this, I will dive into Puppeteer. I tried the demo and enjoyed it. Both games, I got via PS+.

Blasphemy - Sly 2 will always be the best. I'll have to give this one a go. It's always worrisome when an excellent franchise gets handed over to new developers.

 

I played the PS2 games fairly long ago, so I don't remember 100%, but the game has some annoying camera issues in rare cases. The controls are also a teeny bit worse than I remember. I like the introduction to Sly's ancestors and they are fairly fun to play as. I was skeptical at first, but I must say I have had fun. I'm on the 3rd of 6 chapters.

[TheChris92]

 

Dunno, I tried Skyrim for a bit the other day at it was just like Oblivion but without all the greenery, so, uglier.

I spent around 110 hours in Oblivion. I think Skyrim has it beat in wilderness environments. Dungeons are also slightly better. Not a big fan of the cities in Skyrim, though. They are boring.

 

 

Playing Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. A good old 3D platformer with some mini-games here and there. I'm actually not a fan of min-games, but they are easy to complete and not very long. So far, I like it better than Sly 2 and 3, but not as much as Sly 1. After this, I will dive into Puppeteer. I tried the demo and enjoyed it. Both games, I got via PS+.

Blasphemy - Sly 2 will always be the best. I'll have to give this one a go. It's always worrisome when an excellent franchise gets handed over to new developers.

 

I played the PS2 games fairly long ago, so I don't remember 100%, but the game has some annoying camera issues in rare cases. The controls are also a teeny bit worse than I remember. I like the introduction to Sly's ancestors and they are fairly fun to play as. I was skeptical at first, but I must say I have had fun. I'm on the 3rd of 6 chapters.

 

Sounds good to me -- I've recently found myself replaying Crash 3 Warped on my Vita -- Longing for the days when 3D platformers were the ****, and the kind of games I adored the most. I can at best assume it's at least on par with the other Sly games, so that's fine. Whenever it goes down in price I might get it for the Vita and eventually the collection too.

[Rosbjerg]

I'm currently slithering around Big-MT on my **** tipped feet.  I found the humour a bit jarring last time but after watching every episode of Venture Bros I've warmed to it, with the amount of stuff to do it probably is the best DLC of both Bethesda published games, Honest Hearts is still beautiful and elegant though.

 

Funny I had it the other way around, liked it first time - but stopped playing New Vegas this time all together an hour or so into Old World Blues. But yeah, it's pretty Venture Bros - especially with James Urbaniak's/Dr. Venture's Voice.

[WDeranged]

 

I'm currently slithering around Big-MT on my **** tipped feet.  I found the humour a bit jarring last time but after watching every episode of Venture Bros I've warmed to it, with the amount of stuff to do it probably is the best DLC of both Bethesda published games, Honest Hearts is still beautiful and elegant though.

 

Funny I had it the other way around, liked it first time - but stopped playing New Vegas this time all together an hour or so into Old World Blues. But yeah, it's pretty Venture Bros - especially with James Urbaniak's/Dr. Venture's Voice.

 

 

Maybe it was just my mood but OWB's plot felt meaningless after the gravity of DM and HH.  This time around I'm just going with it, and I never had any complaints with the location, it's packed with interesting stuff.

 

 

Played a few hours of Skyrim. I spending more time with this game than I should. I've completed 102 Miscellaneous quests. I don't even care for them, but they get done while I explore. I just like walking around. It feels relaxing until combat kicks in.

 

At times Skyrim is the most relaxing game I've played, I do wish the lore was a smidge more compelling and it could have handled skills better but I've put more hours into it than any other game.  I remember the first time I saw the aurora borealis over Solitude 

[Drowsy Emperor]

I'm giving the Witcher 2 a little break after a marathon session. 

 

The game is a curious mix of improvements and one step forward, two steps back moments. Its greatest failing, one that Dragon Age Origins also committed, is treating its own lore as though its anything more than a backdrop for telling a story the player can relate to. The story is so mired in thoroughly unimportant and interchangeable politics and so bothered with introducing twists that it loses focus on what's most important - the characters, the human element. The principal characters haven't grown a single iota from the first game. Indeed, Geralt is now perhaps less sympathetic than before. From a vaguely ugly individual with a dry sense of humor, inclined to resolve matters without violence if possible to a "Hollywood leading man" - good looking, shallow, aggressive "act first think later". The shift isn't drastic but its definitely there. Other characters are problematic because of their transitory nature. In the opening of chapter two, suddenly there are half a dozen new characters that I've no idea who they are and what they're about. Worst of all no one is either likable or despicable, they're mostly, well, typical. 

And most importantly of all, why should I care? Who gets some piece of land in one fantasy kingdom or another, the fate of a love interest I didn't pick in the previous game... clearing Geralt's name... its all a thin and weak motivator.

 

The area design and logically the exploration, the sense of wonder - its simply not there. The areas are very clearly quest hubs, insufficiently organic in their nature even with the NPC day-night cycles. The chaper 2 dwarven town is so rote in its design that it makes the DAO dwarven city look good. The graphics though, are splendid. In visual qualities, nothing can hope to complete - Dragon Age 3 is Bioware playing catch -up to maybe succeed - the first two games aren't even worth mentioning as competitors. Skyrim isn't in the same league either.  

 

The combat, once one gets over the sometimes crushing difficulty of boss fights is actually much improved over the first game. Since my girlfriend is playing it now I can compare it side by side and its obvious that their goal was to make the former combat elements (potions, bombs, signs, positioning) actually important to gameplay. In the original you had all these things, but except on rare occasions they didn't really matter. Now they're obligatory and its very advantageous to use them. That said, the combat animations aren't always representative of what's going on under the hood - sometimes the enemies aren't parrying visually but Geralt is landing blows on them and not doing any damage. Areas are often too tight to make full use of the very important rolling around dodge. Signs get blocked by terrain elements like rocks and such. The use of QTE's has been overemphasized by players - there are very few of them around and mostly restricted to minigames.

 

The minigames are inexplicably bad. Visually dice poker (a rather fun game IMO) looks worse than before. The great looking table from the first game is gone and the board and dice are both full of visual clutter. The fist-fighting is QTE nonsense. Granted, its wasn't much more complicated the first time around but at least it shared the mechanics of the combat system. Here you tap one or two of WASD keys and animations play out. Ridiculous. Arm wrestling is passable but too easy.

 

Character progression is okay, like in the first game. The inventory and journal are irredeemable, victims of console compromises (and bad even for console games).

 

While this all sounds quite negative the surprising conclusion is that the game is still very good. Its just fallen victim of the blockbuster syndrome, mechanically repeating elements that previously led to success as if they didn't realize that these elements made sense in the proper context. Like swearing. The Witcher helped free us from Bioware's soft spoken tyranny of niceness. No one swears in the BW universe because its not nice. No one is loud in the BW universe unless they're mad or a villain (also mad), and even then, not for very long. Because its not nice. Their characters speak in pseudo Shakespearean drivel that is appropriate for 10% hand in glove of human interactions. The Witcher was simply more believable. But in the Witcher 2 everybody swears, all the time. They're all brutes, all ****. Its now just the opposite end of the BW spectrum, equally absurd and no longer authentic (insofar as a fictional world can be authentic).

 

But even with all those flaws there's really nothing that compares to it. Its the sole AAA story driven single player RPG to play, because what little competition there is, doesn't have much to offer in that regard. I hope they level out the tone a bit in the third game, especially regarding Geralt's character.

[melkathi]

Consortium and I are not getting along. Gameplay is a bit iffy. Need ten attempts for the locker to open. Getting stuck turning a corner. Trying to click something and nothing happens until attempt 20. Click a button to lower some stairs, but the button is positioned in such a way that if you click it the stairs lower on top of you getting you permanently stuck (button obviously can't be re-clicked while you are stuck).

etc etc.

So while storywise it seems interesting, I do not know if I'll be able to play it :/

[Agiel]

Entering the Gutter in Dark Souls 2. Apropos that this was the first message I found in that zone:

 

"This place again?"

[Humanoid]

I've always preferred the Roche path, even though it's objectively less content. It has less explicit exposition of what's going on, fewer sidequests, and you gain fewer levels at the end of it. But it feels more like a proper siege situation rather than a standard CRPG town, and the information that's withheld is done so appropriately, involving things that you couldn't have reasonably known in that situation. Because of that last thing, I also feel it's the better path to take first if intending to play through twice.

 

 

Anyway, it's been a full week since I last turned my desktop on. I think that's a record for any period where I haven't been away. Part of it is probably that I finally have a decent laptop that's pleasant to use and can use while vegging out on the sofa, but it does mean I haven't played any game since last Friday. It's not for lack of games, there are a good number that I'd started but have on hold - Dragonfall, Stick of Truth, Banner Saga, Broken Age, plus longer-term on-hold saves of older games. But I haven't been in the mood for anything cerebral. Maybe it's time for my annual Privateer binge again.

[sorophx]

tried Call of Duty Ghosts while it's free to try on Steam. it's awful. it's the worst FPS I've played in many years. I can't understand the world's obsession with CoD

[Nepenthe]

Still Madden25 (ultimate team). Just got the OVR 99 MVP Adrian Peterson, that should give me that little bit of je-ne-sais-quoi I was missing in my running game. Because the AI has apparently adapted to the fact that I like to go long. :D

[Guest Slinky]

Little tip: Don't use the Killer Axe, it's bugged, at that level I make use of the Orc Sword or the Sablazo. All of his weapons have very little range however so it pays to stay close to ones enemy.

 

How it is bugged? The special attacks not working or will it crash the game and and drive my car into the sea if I use it? I tried to google around but didn't find anything.

[Nonek]

The weapons range seems massively reduced and the hit detection completely off, a pity because I like the looks of it, it's the single edged axe with the spike on the back, first found at the bottom of a mineshaft in Khelbegen among some bones as I remember.

[Amentep]

Well, I'm just about to head off to the human lands in Sacred 2. After I take down the leader of the undead legion. Also about to level up again, so will probably do so when I take this quest in to completion.

[Sarex]

Oh man, Sacred 2. I wonder if they got all the bugs out of it, that game had so many patches.

[Amentep]

Well I haven't hit anything major so far (a couple of quests didn't update until I reloaded a save being the extent so far)

[Agiel]

Just entered Brightsone Cove Tseldora. There's a depressing amount of bloodstains on the cliffside with the painfully obvious boulder traps.

[Labadal]

Beat Puzzle Agent. Have the second game ready to go. It was a decent and charming puzzle game. Nothing that blows the mind but kept me entertained for the 4 hours it lasted. And... I now realized that I completed the game in one sitting. Oops.

[Fighter]

For anyone playing Dark Souls 2 on PC, do you still need a controller?

Edited May 2, 2014 by Fighter

[sorophx]

I think it's even in their marketing campaign for the game, "DS2 is best enjoyed with a controller"

[Drowsy Emperor]

...because we couldn't be bothered to adapt it to the PC.