What are you playing now?

[Starwars]

 

Briefly tried out the early access of The Long Dark. Gotta say it's extremely promising so far and seemingly nearly bug-free as well. Some tuning is needed (less wolves plz) but overall I'm really looking forward to release. I'm not typically a huge fan of hitchiking simulators and survivalism stuff but from my short time with it, The Long Dark really hit the mark.

Yeah, it does look interesting, but imo it suffers from the same problem that any other game of that genre has: You've seen everything soon, and then the game gets boring and pointless.

 

In case of The Long Dark, it's a huge problem that most of the time you are looking at a loading bar (when looting). It's a slow and boring mechanic. A small village with 5 houses and many shelves looks like this: Loading, Loading, Loading, Item!, Loading, Item!, Item!, Loading, Hey now let's check out this other house - wooops a wolf! - Ok, we made it to the next house. Loading, Loading, Loading, Item!, Item!, Loading, .... You get the point.

 

The landscape looks awesome at times, but it also is lacking important looking landmarks quite often. I'd like to compare such games always with what one of the Fallout: New Vegas developers said about the worldmap. Here they wanted the player to see at least one of the few huge landmarks that are on the map at any time (Helios One, Dinky the Dinosaur, the Black Mountain radio stuff, the NCR and Desert Ranger statue at the Mojave Outpost, etc.) and this made it look interesting. Didn't matter where you've been, there was always a point in the distance where you thought "hey, I totally want to check that out!".

 

The Long Dark *does* have such cool landmarks too, but usually you only see them if you are right in front of them (that huge train bridge was awesome, and so is the hydroelectric power plant). But yeah, that's it so far. Rest of the time you walk through mountain corridors that all look the same, hoping not to meet any wolves and if you do, that there is a house where you can rest a day and heal up without running out of food.

 

Last but not least, the game gets super repetitive fast (if the "loot loading" didn't destroyed you yet), because you do nothing else but walking around, trying to find food items. Yeah, "survival!" etc. etc. but let's face it... it's boring after a short while. Even if you could do stuff like partially building your own base with placing custom house parts and so on.

 

For me, such games need a real point of some sort. Scatter around notes that tell me stories, give me real tasks to do like "find parts to repair a radio" or w/e... Let me progress in some kind of way other than "find the best clothes and keep them at 100%" and "find a rifle to make getting food easier" or "increase the 'days surivived' counter as much as possible".

 

 

Well, much of it depends on the mind-set I think. I'm not gonna dive in too much in the game at the moment but for some, trying for the highest number of days survived is a fun challenge. I'm not normally that type of gamer but I think The Long Dark somehow succeeds in making it compelling. That said, I definitely think some things need tuning and developing (wolves really do not work well at the moment) but all in all I think it makes for a surprisingly fun game even though, as you say, much of it is looting things.

About landmarks, that's something I'm not too concerned with. It'd be nice if some of the houses were "personalized" a bit, but the outdoors are completely fine I think. The game is on a different scale and I don't think it's in need of landmarks like something like New Vegas. I kinda like the wilderness feel of it, that often there's just not much around the next bend even though you hope for something you can use. They can certainly find a better balance of things in upcoming maps, for sure, but I like that it's mainly snow and trees with some other stuff sprinkled in between.

 

But yeah, the main draw for me in the game was always the survival gameplay *combined* with the story mode. We'll see how that develops. But I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed myself in such an early product, and in a game-mode I don't typically enjoy that much.

Edited November 11, 2014 by Starwars

[Marceror]

Happy Birthday Skyrim. You are 3 years old today and still awsome.

Glad you enjoy it.

 

I don't usually like first person games, but I did try Skyrim due to everyone I know saying I needed to do so. But ultimately I couldn't get past the overtly console like controls, which on a PC made it feel like I had one hand tied behind my back. And of course the whole first person thing, often resulted in me feeling nauseous. I think I got around 24 hours in before calling it quits. I could see that there was a great game there, but ultimately it wasn't for me.

[GhostofAnakin]

I'm tempted to pick up Assassin's Creed Unity today.  I kind of got bored with the series after Revelations (or whichever one was about the civil war), and haven't played Black Flag yet.

[HoonDing]

Why is it still on Steam?

[Labadal]

I'm tempted to pick up Assassin's Creed Unity today.  I kind of got bored with the series after Revelations (or whichever one was about the civil war), and haven't played Black Flag yet.

Reading about performance issues makes me 0% interested in the game. Prior to reading that, I had a 5% interest in the game.

[Bokishi]

Yeah the ac unity lag on the XBone is pretty bad, it needs a patch. But my god, I just entered Paris, and my jaw dropped; the scale is off the charts. Thousands and thousands of people rioting everywhere in this huge ass historic city. You can walk inside many buildings, it really feels next gen. Now they just need to patch the lag

[Volourn]

WL2 - still awesome

 

NHL 14 - Damn EA will screwing up NHL 15

 

NWN - Was the Best, Is the Best, Always the Best

 

RBI Baseball 14 - HUGE dissapointing uopdate of a classic serious. Dopped the ball HUGE on this one.

 

Waiting for DA3.

[GhostofAnakin]

 

I'm tempted to pick up Assassin's Creed Unity today.  I kind of got bored with the series after Revelations (or whichever one was about the civil war), and haven't played Black Flag yet.

Reading about performance issues makes me 0% interested in the game. Prior to reading that, I had a 5% interest in the game.

 

 

I'm sure they'll eventually clear up the lag issues.  Hopefully.

 

I'm still probably not going to get it.  Not right now, anyway.  I just bought CoD AW and, while I'm loathing the MP, I have to finish the SP campaign.  And by then DA3 and Far Cry 4 will be out next Tuesday.

[WDeranged]

I'm chewing my way through Fallout 3 (oh god the crashes) for the first time since New Vegas came out.  It's weird because I'm seeing assets as being lifted from New Vegas rather than vice versa, it's as if Fallout 3 were a more polished but mechanically stripped down sequel to New Vegas.

 

As much as I love the game it's really hard to ignore the inept dialogue, I don't remember it being quite this bad but Skyrim is masterful by comparison.  The world design is top notch though, the most explorable game world I've played and the whole of DC is essentially a colossal dungeon linked up by convoluted subways full of hidden stuff.

 

Love that music too, expanded with mods of course 

 

 

Happy Birthday Skyrim. You are 3 years old today and still awsome.

 

I think I've just about played enough Skyrim to permanently damage my mental health and I've still not seen it all, that Falskaar mod looks pretty cool too..

Edited November 12, 2014 by WDeranged

[Calax]

Unity of The Assassins Creed.

[Hurlshort]

So I tried to play AC: Black Flag, but it does not run well.  I tried a few fixes, but I'm not happy yet.  AC3 ran great, so I'm surprised.  Kinda wish I had it on the PS4 instead.  

[Marceror]

Oh my. Europa Universalis IV is... disturbingly good.

[GhostofAnakin]

Went against my own advice and played more CoD tonight.  Decided to try more hardcore TDM since I was getting annoyed with hitting the enemy first but not killing him since apparently you need a million bullets to kill in regular mode (hyperbole).  Hardcore was better.  At least when you hit the guy first, he goes down.

 

The only downside is having bad teammates.  If I'm facing one way, it's nice to have a teammate covering the other direction.  But nope, there's zero teamwork and they just go running off to play solo TDM.

 

I do have to get started on the SP campaign, though.  Otherwise I might not get around to it, what with DA3 and Far Cry 4 coming out in a week's time.  And that's assuming I don't give in to temptation and get Assassin's Creed first.

[Bokishi]

I heard that the lag in Unity was only due to the day one patch. People reinstalled the game without the patch and the game ran perfect. It seems to be running alright for me now, so I probably won't bother with doing that. Not to mention that all the performance issues will probably get patched out soon.

 

But wow does this game look next gen. I've never seen so many crowds like this in a videogame before. There's always like 400-2000 people in your view at all times when wandering the streets. There are also areas later in the game with 12000 people

Edited November 12, 2014 by Bokishi

[HoonDing]

Valkyria Profile is really, really good. I'm glad more Console Master Race games are finally coming to peecee.

[Labadal]

Chronicles!

[marelooke]

Snailing my way through WL2, cleared out the other infections after AG Center, went to Highpool and killed everyone at the Wreckers base and now I've just arrived at the Rail Nomads camp and saved a drowning kid.

 

I also found out that it helps to actually equip radiation protection after you buy it (nobody died though). Who'd have though!?

 

I also picked up my Shadow Warrior (the reboot) campaign that I started shortly after that game got released (did I mention I have *a lot* of unfinished playthrough in various games?)

 

I have such a huge backlog right now that I'm really having trouble deciding on what to play...(on top of actually finishing anything I start)

[Marceror]

Playing as Castile in EUIV, and have played for around 100 years so far. I'm playing mostly as a pacifist in Europe so far, except my conquest of Granada to complete the Reconquista. I'm mostly focused on exploration and colonization, which seemed a reasonable goal for my first play through.

 

I played it cool with Aragon, who I believe is meant to be my natural rival, and did what I could to keep our relations high. We had a royal marriage, but I did not become their ally as I didn't want to get dragged into their wars. In spite of them declaring me their rival, I eventually received a decision to hold a Castilian wedding, and that put me into a tight alliance with Aragon and Naples, since our leaders are all from the same dynasty. But they almost became like my vassals, even though I received no money from them. Eventually Aragon decided to join with me and form the Kingdom of Spain. I took over all of their forces and holdings in one fell swoop, without any fighting required and went from a moderate European power to a true heavy hitter, controlling the entire Iberian Peninsula minus Portugal as well as some of Southern Italy. A while later I was able to also integrate Naples into my kingdom, and at that point controlled all of Southern Italy and much of Central, bordering the Papal States in Rome.

 

Colonization has been the real battle, particularly against Portugal. But in spite of a couple silly misunderstandings from me on the mechanics at first, I'm in the lead with colonies. I focused first on the West Indies, and built my colony to the point that it became self sufficient (the AI took over, to my surprise and assumed the name Castilian West Indies. They control nearly all of the good islands and most of present day Cuba. Of course, Portugal is right there, and they took a share of the spoils as well.

 

Next I focused on Brazil and managed to establish an AI controlled "Spanish Brazil" along much of the eastern coast of South America. I'm trying to get another similar colony established in Western Africa. And while continuing to explore and develop my colonies I noticed that I was all of the sudden at war with my former ally Portugal.

 

My colony, Castilian West Indies actually attacked Portugal's colony in the same area, and is fixing to kick them out of Cuba. They also are also colonizing lands on their own and have a fairly sizable army and navy. Wow.

 

So I left off way too late last night with that war still to be fought. During it all I actually managed to become the top ranked nation in the game. This game is completely amazing.

[Malcador]

Gray Matter, seems kind of easy.

[Drowsy Emperor]

That's because it is. I liked it up until the ending though.

[GhostofAnakin]

Ugh, so frustrated.  I finally -- FINALLY! -- got a long kill streak and got a vulcan strike and an air strike queued up (couldn't use my air strike as someone else on my team had an air attack already in progress), but a couple of my idiot teammates decide to run around in the open instead of staying out of sight before I could activate them.  Our team lost 75-74, when I could have won the match with smarter teammates.

 

More than the fact we lost, I'm just annoyed that when I finally get some high end reward streaks (I've been struggling to get anything more than a UAV), I don't even get a chance to use them!

[GhostofAnakin]

Ran into my first set of "exploiters" today in CoD.  On one map, apparently you can get behind a glass door and can shoot out but nobody can shoot in.  This idiot stayed in there the entire match, got a decent kill streak (where the glass door is, you have a good view of two main pathways people always pass by), and ruined the game for me.  The next game (different lobby as I hate playing with cheaters), someone else used the exploit.

 

What's the fun in doing that?  Okay, cool, you go 20-0.  But you cheated to do it.  It's not like you actually dominated anyone with your skill to get that K/D.  It would be like playing NHL15, but unplugging the other guy's controller.  Cool, you won 15-0 against a team that wasn't even being controlled.

[Labadal]

Divine Divinity. Brute forcing my way through the game as a sword and board fighter with points in stun, alchemy and some other crap. Been fighting lots of undead but now on to fighting orcs.

[Humanoid]

The first Mario Kart 8 DLC pack is now active, so tried each of the new tracks (eight of them) in easy mode. I'd not played the game for some months now, so I don't have a good gauge of relative difficulty, but in terms of production value, they're by every measure as good as the original tracks. There are a few extra characters and vehicles but I don't really concern myself with them.

[Keyrock]

The first Mario Kart 8 DLC pack is now active, so tried each of the new tracks (eight of them) in easy mode. I'd not played the game for some months now, so I don't have a good gauge of relative difficulty, but in terms of production value, they're by every measure as good as the original tracks. There are a few extra characters and vehicles but I don't really concern myself with them.

Sweet.  I can't wait to give it a spin when I get home.  I hope every character can use the new vehicles and it's not just Link that can ride the Master Cycle.  I want Cat Peach riding the Master Cycle.