What are you playing now?

[Lexx]

Hm while we are at the Xbox 360 controller again: Is it true that it needs 2 AA batteries? Can't be recharged simply with a usb cable, like the PS3 controller?

 

If so, how long does that thing work with fully loaded batteries?

Edited November 19, 2014 by Lexx

[Bendu]

Maybe 2-3 weeks. Never put much attention to that.

[Hurlshort]

Hm while we are at the Xbox 360 controller again: Is it true that it needs 2 AA batteries? Can't be recharged simply with a usb cable, like the PS3 controller?

 

If so, how long does that thing work with fully loaded batteries?

I think there are different models, but mine needs batteries. It lasts for a pretty good amount of time though, depending on usage.

[Malcador]

Relented and picked up Warlords of Draenor and a month's sub to WoW, now that the technical issues look to have been sorted, and amidst all the "best new content in 6 or 8 years" hype. For context, I quit some two-and-a-half years ago, and my guild had recently moved to the Sydney-based Oceanic servers, and I had pre-emptively moved with them. Couldn't not do it, since I co-founded the bloody thing back in '07. Looking like a bit of a skeleton crew at the moment though, so raiding is probably off the menu for now - and with the highest difficult raid being restricted to 20-person groups, I'm not sure it'll ever be back. (We were a mid-range progression guild from BC to Cata, though scaled down to two raids of 10s by the time the latter arrived)

 

Can feel the effect of the reduced latency instantly, 10ms pings instead of the ~200ms I was used to in my 7 year stint on a West Coast US server. The flipside of this is that any other MMO isn't likely to be able to match it, making WoW the only MMO in town now (as if it wasn't already).

 

Don't really have an opinion on whether that hype is justified yet - from what little I've done so far (2 levels in out of 10) the questing is more or less what's been done with the last few expansions. It took me 15 minutes to stop paying attention to quest text and cutscenes and start accepting them blindly, the writing being as perfunctory as ever. My garrison isn't developed enough to formulate an opinion on them either. Profession changes seem nice, much less taxing on bag space, and no firm need to go through obsolete content to skill up.

Ah, some of the quests are funny, I generally read them the first time myself so as to not miss whatever bits of story there are - later on you deal with some Arrakoa raven worhsippers that are pretty amusing ( "It was said in the Journal of the Rising Sun that eating in the mornings cannot be done without harming a few eggs." ).

 

I hit 100, so am blundering though the end game stuff, the garrison minigame is rather addictive in a way, as you level up the followers. The mine and salvage yard are fantastic, the former gives a decent amount of ore which is great if you have a consumer profession for it, the latter is nice for follower gear as well as character gear - albeit a chance to get any of that. I am finding materials are piling up like crazy a bit as they've decided to add more daily CD crafting skills, granted they are fairly useful items but now I have to wait a week to make my goggles (epics, sure, but probably heroic level)

[GhostofAnakin]

Do you get to keep your favorite gun and attachments when you prestige, like in black ops 2?

 

I decided to prestige.  You get to keep one thing, whether it be a gun, attachment, or perk.  Whichever you want.  But only the one.  Everything else you lose.

 

I chose my favorite gun, which would have been locked until something like Level 28 or there abouts.

[Humanoid]

Ah, some of the quests are funny, I generally read them the first time myself so as to not miss whatever bits of story there are - later on you deal with some Arrakoa raven worhsippers that are pretty amusing ( "It was said in the Journal of the Rising Sun that eating in the mornings cannot be done without harming a few eggs." ).

 

I hit 100, so am blundering though the end game stuff, the garrison minigame is rather addictive in a way, as you level up the followers. The mine and salvage yard are fantastic, the former gives a decent amount of ore which is great if you have a consumer profession for it, the latter is nice for follower gear as well as character gear - albeit a chance to get any of that. I am finding materials are piling up like crazy a bit as they've decided to add more daily CD crafting skills, granted they are fairly useful items but now I have to wait a week to make my goggles (epics, sure, but probably heroic level)

Don't mind the follower minigame from what I've seen so far, though the RNG element is frustrating, especially in what type of followers you get initially. On one character I lucked out and got three epic followers and three rare ones out of eight. The same eight followers on the next character has one epic follower and two rares. Eh, I hope it evens out by the time I get 25 of them.

 

The garrison-based profession stuff seems utterly tedious though, I get to ...walk down a mine and click some free nodes every day? Geez, why not just put all of the ore in a box, why do I even employ these people? And then build a building for the sole purpose of converting gathered items into usable form - it's all very overengineered and ends up being just clutter. I mean it's functionally something that could just be in the normal profession menu, don't need a building and two NPCs to do that.

 

As for the core gameplay, I'm okay but not loving my current choices. I took my old warlock, which I'd never used seriously, from 85 to 93 so far, toggling between Affliction and Destruction every level or two for variety. I used my free 90 boost to make a new druid - I'd played with a druid main for most of BC and LK but elected to leave my old druid on my original server - and taken it to 92 as Feral. I'd played three years solid raiding with a Balance/Resto druid, but have never even touched Feral.

[Keyrock]

Finished my Bayonetta 2 Rosa all gold or better playthrough.  I scored 9 platinum and 8 gold for the prologue + 16 chapters.  The unlock is the Bracelet of Time (methinks that's a Devil May Cry reference).  It's a useful item, though I doubt I'll use it.  It lets you trigger Witch Time whenever you want, but drains your magic pool when you do so and prevents you from ever using Umbran Climax.  I'd rather trigger Witch Time the old fashioned way (dodging) or via Moon of Mahaa-Kalaa (staggering and countering the opponent) and being able to trigger the ultra powerful Umbran Climax (Rosa does so much damage while in Umbran Climax that I've beaten boss level enemies in a matter of 10 seconds).  Now would probably be a good time to take a break from the game and play something else.  Ha ha, just kidding, though I'll probably dial my playing time back some and play other games a bit more.  I'll likely spend the majority of my Bayonetta 2 time playing tag climax for a bit to try to unlock Balder and/or Rodin.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Keyrock

[Drowsy Emperor]

Divinity Original Sin

 

I'm still in Act 1 and the game is really good. My gamersense is telling me the story isn't going to go anywhere interesting but I'm letting that slide on account of fun combat and good world design. The visuals are really pleasing too.

 

I don't like the boring, Diablo like, randomized loot though. 

 

Still an 8/10 game.

[GhostofAnakin]

Picked up Dragon Age: Inquisition.  Very early in.  The graphics look very crisp on the PS4.  Combat feels a bit clunky, though.  But that might just be me not being used to the various buttons yet.

[BruceVC]

I finished SR4 last night and its a very entertaining game, a solid 65/100

 

I really admire the way the Developers were able to design very unique side-quests and parts of the main quest. Like when you freed Johnny Gat from the computer, I was constantly surprised about the variation of challengers that were thrown at you . Also they were able to create a "believable " way for you have super powers in the simulation

 

End of the day I still prefer the GTA type of living world design that is "realistic, in other words no jumping over buildings but SR4 is  a very good game and well worth the money I spent

[Malcador]

 

Ah, some of the quests are funny, I generally read them the first time myself so as to not miss whatever bits of story there are - later on you deal with some Arrakoa raven worhsippers that are pretty amusing ( "It was said in the Journal of the Rising Sun that eating in the mornings cannot be done without harming a few eggs." ).

 

I hit 100, so am blundering though the end game stuff, the garrison minigame is rather addictive in a way, as you level up the followers. The mine and salvage yard are fantastic, the former gives a decent amount of ore which is great if you have a consumer profession for it, the latter is nice for follower gear as well as character gear - albeit a chance to get any of that. I am finding materials are piling up like crazy a bit as they've decided to add more daily CD crafting skills, granted they are fairly useful items but now I have to wait a week to make my goggles (epics, sure, but probably heroic level)

Don't mind the follower minigame from what I've seen so far, though the RNG element is frustrating, especially in what type of followers you get initially. On one character I lucked out and got three epic followers and three rare ones out of eight. The same eight followers on the next character has one epic follower and two rares. Eh, I hope it evens out by the time I get 25 of them.

 

The garrison-based profession stuff seems utterly tedious though, I get to ...walk down a mine and click some free nodes every day? Geez, why not just put all of the ore in a box, why do I even employ these people? And then build a building for the sole purpose of converting gathered items into usable form - it's all very overengineered and ends up being just clutter. I mean it's functionally something that could just be in the normal profession menu, don't need a building and two NPCs to do that.

 

As for the core gameplay, I'm okay but not loving my current choices. I took my old warlock, which I'd never used seriously, from 85 to 93 so far, toggling between Affliction and Destruction every level or two for variety. I used my free 90 boost to make a new druid - I'd played with a druid main for most of BC and LK but elected to leave my old druid on my original server - and taken it to 92 as Feral. I'd played three years solid raiding with a Balance/Resto druid, but have never even touched Feral.

 

Yeah, shame they can't mine for you, however it is a good way to get skillup points if you were sub 600 or just to assist with hitting max level mining. You do get carts with archeology goods and other stuff as well. They could have done more, I suppose. My 100 got NO rare followers, which sucked, but my alts have a couple already, heh.

[Humanoid]

Can't check now because of maintenance obviously, but I either had ridiculously good luck on followers with my "alt" or somewhat bad luck on my "main". (I use quotation marks because both are essentially throwaway characters I'm levelling on a somewhat arbitrary basis) Out of the first nine available in the starting zone, alt got three epics, three rare. Main had one epic, two rare I think. Alt is parked at 92 so no more followers anytime soon, main has picked up just one more epic follower in the following two zones and no more rares.

[Malcador]

As usual, I have the worst luck in loot. Slowly grinding my way up to the uber castle, think it's about 2-3 days away. The 10th anniversary is starting, along with the revamped MC. Got a laugh out of the fact they made the window behind Golemagg take you to Rag

[Keyrock]

I unlocked Balder in Bayonetta 2.  He unlocks in Tag Climax Mode and the verse you need to beat is offered to you randomly while playing other matches.  It's a pretty hard verse where you have to fight both Balder and Rosa at the same time.  He's only available to use in Tag Climax Mode (I imagine the same is true for Rodin), which I guess makes sense.  While the character models are replaced in Story Mode cutscenes with whomever you're playing (leading to hilarious instances of double Jeanne or double Rosa if you play those characters) the voice remains the same, meaning it's always Bayonetta speaking no matter who you're playing (in th cutscenes, the barks during gameplay will be replaced with Rosa or Jeanne specific barks and voices if you play either of those characters).  While this can seem a bit weird, seeing Jeanne or Rosa talking with Bayonetta's voice, it;s not that weird since it's still a female voice coming out of a female body.  I imagine hearing Balder or Rodin talk with Bayonetta's voice would be quite jarring (and amazingly hilarious).  Anyway, Balder is crazy fast and his attacks have pretty good melee range and tend to hit in an arc, potentially hitting multiple enemies.  I still prefer to play as Rosa in Tag Climax, though, simply because of her insane damage output.

[trulez]

DA:I

 

I found out quickly that I suck at creating appealing characters. Even when I think I've managed to create something I could see my self playing for longer as soon as I'm in game the lighting changes and the character looks totally different than in the creator. I think I've restarted the game about 7 times now, still not 100% happy with what I got but this time I'm just going to stick with it.

 

Also, I have the graphics maxed out in game and from drivers (quality over performance) and still running it at 50-80fps, which is nice. Shame though the game has some issues with SLI and some textures flicker every now and then, but not often enough for it to really bother me.

[Lexx]

So my PC -> TV setup is working, and my Xbox 360 controller arrived. Have to say it feels quite good. I might even like it more than the PS3 controller.

 

Tested out some games: Oddworld Stranger's Wrath feels pretty good. Couldn't bear it on PC with keyboard and mouse. It just felt really annoying to play. Also the graphic looks pretty good. It's one of the best looking "console games" I now own.

 

Also I've found out that Alien Isolation is a lot more fun with a controller... But this doesn't surprise me much, as I've seen right in the first minute that it's got a horrible console port (just reading the computer logs felt too annoying to me... So many buttons to press for such a small action). Plays much more smooth with a controller. Now I might get around to play it a little more / maybe even finish it.

 

In any case, now I am ready for Metal Gear Solid 5 and the Resident Evil Remake Remake and I've got the best possible console ready for it... a PC. :>

Edited November 22, 2014 by Lexx

[Bartimaeus]

DA:I

 

I found out quickly that I suck at creating appealing characters. Even when I think I've managed to create something I could see my self playing for longer as soon as I'm in game the lighting changes and the character looks totally different than in the creator. I think I've restarted the game about 7 times now, still not 100% happy with what I got but this time I'm just going to stick with it.

Yeah, I always use one of the default presets in "create-your-own-character" type-games and try not to think about it later. If I dislike all of the default presets, it usually takes me a few days of warming myself up to the one I dislike the least so I can play with it. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but it is what it is.

Edited November 22, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Humanoid]

Well with Skyrim at least you could easily change it at any time with the showracemenu console command.

[Gorgon]

Last thing I tried was Borderlands Prequel. This was mostly because the BL series is still the only thing hubby likes/plays so we were hoping for more LAN fun.

 

Sadly, while it does feel like Borderlands, we were disappointed with it. It's not terrible, mind you, but the area design is dull compared to 1st two games, the gravity-slam and low gravity features didn't excite us and the campaign was pretty short even for us slowpokes. We went through Normal difficulty and I haven't touched it since. Claptrap as a playable chr. was sorta amusing, tho. Oh and the Cyro/freezing weapons were fun to use.

 

The most irritating is how so many of the quest bosses aren't re-farmable. Such is fine in a story-rpg game, but a loot-hunt/grinding game? Not so much. At any rate, technically it does qualify as a stand-alone, full-price game, but it plays more like a $30 expansion.

Not really worth calling it a sequel. And there's still no PVP. No arena either. Many of the missions are copy/paste from borderlands 2 and they were terrible then.

[Drowsy Emperor]

I played 10 minutes of Dragon Age II and I'm taken aback by how horrible the graphics are. Everything is dark and muddy and low res.

 

This is on Directx11 with everything on the maximum.

 

And the gameplay.... I thought people may have been overreacting at the time, but actually its worse than I believed. Power ranger enemies, console combat....

My first impression is that the game is garbage and I never thought this about any Bioware game regardless of how much I disliked them.

Edited November 22, 2014 by Drowsy Emperor

[HoonDing]

DA:I combat is way worse.

[Drowsy Emperor]

How can it be worse

[HoonDing]

Watch some videos. There's not even auto-attack, you need to hold down a button. Plus it's a cluster**** of special effects, like PoE in 3D.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Ah yes, the missing auto attack. At least with DA2 its obvious the game is a rush job, dunno what they were thinking this time around.

 

The darkspawn movement animation in DA2 is insane, they sort of run in place while twitching their swords and floating forward. 

Edited November 22, 2014 by Drowsy Emperor

[Keyrock]

I'm starting to go through the Bayonetta 2 Story Mode again, this time on 3rd Climax Difficulty with Rosa.  I'm determined to go through on Infinite Climax with Rosa, so I'll need the extra practice, even though I'm already pretty darn comfortable using her.  My main mission this time around is learning to use the Moon of Mahaa-Kalaa accessory.  This accessory has long been touted by expert Bayonetta players (it appears in both games) as the best accessory in the game, but it takes learning to use it properly.  What it does is that it gives you an alternative to dodging attacks.  At face value, it seems like a poor trade off, though you can still use dodge regularly with the accessory equipped (unlike some other accessories that cancel out some functions).  Instead of dodging you put up a force field in front of you that blocks the attack and staggers the enemy throwing said attack.  That sounds good, but the force field only stays up for a few milliseconds, meaning you have to have split second perfect timing to use it, by comparison dodging attacks, even triggering Witch Time using dodging, has a more lenient slice of time to use.  More than that, unlike dodging, which is just a simple button press, to use this ability you have to push the analog stick at the exact right moment toward the direction the attack is coming from.  In many cases that's not a big deal, but sometimes you're getting attacked from multiple directions at once and it's difficult to tell which attack will land first in real time (using regular dodge is probably the best call for those situations).  So, why is this a great ability?  If you use the ability successfully then immediately push toward the direction of the attack again (in practice push the analog stick toward the attack twice quickly), you not only put up a force field to block the attack and stagger the attacker, you also launch an immediate counter attack and trigger an extended Witch Time.  The operative word her is "extended".  Witch Time usually only last about 2 or 3 seconds.  Depending on the enemies I'm facing, I have to make a split second decision on which combo to launch.  some enemies stagger easily and you can launch a longer, more damaging (and higher score) combo that will start in Witch Time and keep going in real time.  Other enemies don't stagger easily and once Witch Time is up will usually immediately counter attack.  Having Witch Time last a couple seconds longer gives me extra time to launch longer combos and/or position myself out of harm's way,  Those extra seconds often mean the difference between simply damaging an enemy or killing it, or killing one enemy or killing multiple enemies.