What are you playing now?

[Blarghagh]

What are you playing now? RIGHT NOW? COME ON! TELL ME!

 

Last time on the what are you playing now thread: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68966-what-are-you-playing-now/page-29

 

It's almost as if Crytek knows how to make game engines that push the limits of graphics, but they can't actually make a good game any more.  On the bright side, the game does have next-gen boob physics

 

 

 

Couple hours so far of the rather prosaically named Super Smash Bros for Wii U (I guess it saves the confusion of appending an arbitrary word at the end), it only having been released in Australia this past Saturday. It's pretty much as one would expect, incremental improvement. Unfortunately the campaign mode is not available online, local multiplayer only.

 

 

 

Needing a break from the twitch action gameplay of Bayonetta 2 (a guy needs a change of pace after 75+ hours), I started playing Divinity: Original Sin.  I've been waiting for the Linux version to come out, which is why I haven't played it earlier, but, on a whim, I decided to see how it would run via WINE.  Lo and behold, not only does it run, it runs perfectly, even with all settings maxed out.  So, since it runs great, no need to wait for the Linux version, I can play it now, and when the Linux version does come out, I can just copy my profile and save files over and continue seamlessly (if the game does cloud sync it will do that for me automagically, but I never bothered checking if it does).  Anyway, I'm still pretty early in the game, still mucking around Cyseal, though I think I'm mostly done in this area and ready to move on.  My Source Hunters are Luciana, a cleric who's both a front line fighter and my primary healer, and Humphrey, a witch who's my all around magey dude.  For my companions, I scooped up Madora as a second front line fighter and Bairdotr as my archer plus thievery type.  I definitely like the game a lot so far, even if can be frustrating at times.  I like being able to wander into areas I have no business being, and the guards will warn me once that I probably shouldn't go there yet, but I can all the same and wind up getting obliterated (though I have won a couple battles I really had no business winning via creative use of the environment).  One big compliment I will give to the game is that it has probably the best pathfinding I've ever seen in this type of game.Things like your characters automatically avoiding spotted traps and hazardous surfaces may seem like a minor detail, but it makes the game so much less frustrating and tedious to play that it would have been if I had to babysit each character, one by one, around every trap.  Seriously, how has it taken until 2014 for a game of this type to finally get this right?  How is it that it's taken several decades of these types of games being made until someone was finally able to program pathfinding that doesn't make your characters look like complete imbeciles?

I am rather annoyed that the Linux version is still not there. The only reason I can think of that it is taking this long is because they didn't think their choice of libraries through when they started out. Which also highlights why it is a terrible idea to develop on one platform and *then* port your game instead of taking some extra time up front and building for all platforms at once...


Personally I've been playing me some Shadow Warrior (the new one), made it to chapter 9 I think, which puts me past halfway done.

Also made it through the new event in Warframe, was even topping my clan's leaderbords when I did it (most of them are Mastery 16-18 veterans, so yay for me ), haven't checked back since then though but I'm sure someone beat me by now (but ignorance is bliss, so I'm going to revel in my awesomeness until at least this evening )

 

[Drowsy Emperor]

I tried a bit of Kingdoms of Amalur but the game refuses to work properly in widescreen. I did play it with black bars to the side but overall the game reminds me a lot of Fable. Its colorful, the action combat is functional but after playing so many games of the same type there's simply no point in playing yet another generic hack and slash RPG.

[Bokishi]

AC Unity, GTA 5, COD AW, MCC, I might get DA:I soon

[Tale]

DA:I and loving every minute of it.

 

I want to play Shadows of Mordor too, but can't drag myself away.

[Blarghagh]

The news about the final StarCraft expansion made me fanboy out and now I'm going through the other two campaigns, almost done with Wings of Liberty. The story is even worse than I remember but it's great at being ridiculously epic to the point of self-parody and most of the missions are fun and varied. Overall I'm having a blast.

[LadyCrimson]

After many restarts and endless exploration within those, I've finally found the perfect spot to make a base in 7DtD. Triangular cluster of 3 stone/brick houses. Place for gardens, even "pools." and fancy furniture/attics. But mostly, I can make a huge base underground w/tunnel entrances from/to the 3 homes, with above-ground being a triangular zone of zombie traps for that 7 day cycle. Too much fun.

 

Also: zombie world disasters: the only time I condone burning books. Gotta clean up that water so I don't die of thirst, hunger or dysentery!

 

[Rosbjerg]

Started Mass Effect, think I'm gonna go through the series, whenever I have a little spare time.

[Malcador]

Garrisonlords of Draenor still. Friends aren't max level yet so have idle time. In the meantime, should really finish all the half-completed games I'm on - namely Divinity 2

[Keyrock]

Divinity: Original Sin.  I'm nearing lev 10 and I just made it out of the starting area around Cyseal and into the forest north of it.  I really dig the game's cheesy sense of humor, it goes a long way toward making an already enjoyable experience into something very fun.  Also, I've gotten pretty proficient at utilizing the environment and my different spells and abilities to set up wicked traps for my foes.  I'll sometimes spend 5 minutes at a time dragging a barrel or two over to an area to perfect my devious plan.  

[Humanoid]

Garrisonlords of Draenor still. Friends aren't max level yet so have idle time. In the meantime, should really finish all the half-completed games I'm on - namely Divinity 2

Same, but the gloss is coming off for me, and quickly. First few days I was thinking it's a nice improvement since I last played, but my opinion has steadily declined since then to the point of exasperation with WoD's outdoor levelling zones. I've grown to absolutely loathe the new rare mob system which incentivises pointless out-of-the-way hunts just to be able to keep up with enchanting materials, because for the most part that's the only purpose the rare mob system serves.

 

The only reason the similar treasure system isn't quite as bad is because the rewards from it tend towards fluff instead of being almost mandatory to keep up with the enchant economy. Add to this the busywork of manual resource gathering for your garrison: chopping down trees, really? It's notionally optional, but required if you want to make meaningful use of your garrison. Think of microtransactions in F2P games that have to pay for some sort of resource to keep playing the game instead of being forced to endure interminable waits. Garrison resources feel like that.

 

Together, they make levelling the biggest chore that it has been since at least vanilla, and possibly ever. I want to be able to pick and choose where I go, skip quests and areas I find tedious without being punished economically. Being able to choose to do that in the past was pretty much the only form of player agency possible in WoW (an extremely thin veneer of it, granted), but the experience here is the opposite of that, it's more linear, railroaded and "cinematic" than ever.

 

Raids open in about a day - and to be fair that's the thing I play for - it's probably the last chance for WoD to show its value before I give up on it. If not for the possibility of trying out "heroic" (normal) raids with the new flex and cross-server arrangements, I'd have not even considered buying WoD.

[Enoch]

As alluded to in the Inquisition thread, I'm playing Dragon Age: Origins. 

 

Based on my Bio profile's achievement info, it's been over 4 years since I put meaningful time into the game.  I recently picked up the Ultimate Edition cheap, as I've never played any of the non-day-1 DLC or the expansion.  I'm going Mage again.  That and melee rogue are, to me, by far the most fun combat roles to play in this system, and Mage has the advantage of making Morrigan completely dispensible.  (Tank melee and archer are comparatively boring, IMO, and off-tank fighter duplicates the role of 3+ companions.) 

 

Some fresh-eyes impressions:

* The Mage origin has some cleverly delivered exposition, but the plot is pretty ludicrous.  

* Ostagar is better designed than I remembered-- some neat little sidequests in the Wilds, and the Tower of Ishal has some nice encounter design

* Lothering, on the other hand, really could have used a bit more effort, perhaps splitting the village and the fields into separate zones.  The open area and AI coding also stupidly allows you to 'pull' enemies one-by-one with a longbow. 

* Hey, I can finally talk to the DLC salesman hanging around my camp!

* The nice thing about this being a re-play is that I no longer feel much "must see all the content" metagame motivation.  I can roleplay a little more freely, particularly in not bothering to kiss the rear ends of NPCs who I don't like.  (Or in killing them off when they deserve it.  Zevran is not long for this world.)  

* Alistair is  not (yet) quite as annoying as I remembered, but Morrigan is even moreso.  I thank her for her help with the precisely 2 battles she participated in (finding the Dog, and the bandits at the Lothering entrance), and she can now hang out way over there in her personal camp for the rest of the game.  From a roleplaying perspective, I'm assuming that my Warden is too scared of Flemeth to drive her off or slit her throat while she sleeps, but he's not going to let her get any more involved in this whole thing than he absolutely has to. 

 

Anyhow, I've just finished Honnleath, to recruit Shale, who will spend the rest of the game in the party.  The rest will be a rotating cast of Wynne (more often than not), Leliana (if I absolutely must see what's in all the chests), and Sten/Dog/Al/Oghren (based on character-appropriateness for the quest being undertaken and general mood).  The Circle Tower is next, for Wynne and stat boosts. 

 

I'd welcome any suggestions on when to do the DLC missions. 

[Bartimaeus]

BG2. Beat Kangaxx. Holy garbage, was that an intense fight. He absolutely ruined my level 14/15 party a half-dozen times. Couldn't figure out why I couldn't do any damage to the bugger after multiple Ruby Rays of Reversals and Breaches - bloody demi-liches are only vulnerable to +4 weapons and better, and I only have the Flail of Ages +4 on my Mage/Cleric who doesn't really use it too much at the moment, (I am thinking of shuffling around my proficiencies a little to make better use of major weapons...), and Foebane +4 on my Ranger who kept getting imprisoned, (as well as the Short Sword of Mask +4 that I'm currently not using in favor of...uh...Usuno's Blade, I think, which is only +3 in Item Revisions). My Mage/Cleric was level drained to level freaking three by the end of that fight by the demi-lich level-drain/imprisonment combo - don't know how he managed to keep resisting the imprisonment bit, but hey, not having to get a dumb Freedom scroll is fine by me.

 

My sorceress has really been my saving grace for all these fights - don't understand why the class gets so much hate, to be honest. There's no way I'd have the endurance to take these guys on at this level without her. I need at least two to three Ruby Rays of Reversal to take down these guys' magical defenses, another two to three Secret Words or Pierce Magics, and a whole bunch of Breaches if I want to keep them on their toes, unable to cast any truly damaging spells on my relatively low-level and very vulnerable party. The damage these super arcane spellcasters can do when they're not too busy casting physical protection spells to defend against my front-line fighters is too great to weather.

 

Next stop...Twisted Rune. I'm pretty sure I will not be able to do it, but I've surprised myself with this party composition a lot already, so why not? My advantage with all of these other normally "a lot later" fights, though, have been that they're single-foe encounters - where I can make great use of having two arcane spell-casters to bring down spell defenses rapidly, unable to get an inch edge-wise. Twisted Rune, though...there's...what, at least three major spellcasters? Yeah, I'm gonna get wrecked.

[Volourn]

"Mage has the advantage of making Morrigan completely dispensible."

 

Dissing one of the best 3 joinables in the first two games is evil. Evil, i say.

 

 

"(Or in killing them off when they deserve it.  Zevran is not long for this world.) "

 

He deserves it. Assassins deserve to be executed.

[GhostofAnakin]

Still playing through DA: I.  I'm impressed by its length and scope.  The areas you can visit and the sidequests associated with each new area just keep on going.

 

On the downside, the longer I play the longer the character graphics start to leave me unimpressed.  The detail of the game world is great, but the characters kind of look awkward and too similar to DA:O for my liking for a next-gen game.  The characters also kind of move in a jerky, awkward way.

 

One of my companions must have dropped below the threshold of like/dislike, because he's got a big 'X' through his name and cannot be selected when picking a party for quests.  And this is after I had a cutscene where we shared a drink and he praised me for being the type of person this world needs.  The hypocrite.

[Tale]

I decided to try out Shadow of Mordor. Just to try it out.

 

Next thing I know, I've killed like 6 Captains. Including two that were hanging out together at a Stronghold. And I already have a nemesis in a guy I had to run away from.

[LadyCrimson]

7 Days to Die conclusion: With zombie spawning turned low or completely off, the current alpha version is most excellent for my sandbox/building desires. Digging, farming, finding loot, forging materials, hunger/thirst, exploring in a map that never stops drawing itself no matter how much you wander. Plus I can change some stuff via the config. files.

 

Hence I've copied the entire Steam folder of the game to backup, because I know 10 versions from now, I'll probably "hate what they've done to the game."

[GhostofAnakin]

 

One of my companions must have dropped below the threshold of like/dislike, because he's got a big 'X' through his name and cannot be selected when picking a party for quests.  And this is after I had a cutscene where we shared a drink and he praised me for being the type of person this world needs.  The hypocrite.

 

Heh, oops.  I guess that was part of a quest, not him just deciding he doesn't like me anymore.

[Serrano]

Still playing through DA: I.  I'm impressed by its length and scope.  The areas you can visit and the sidequests associated with each new area just keep on going.

 

On the downside, the longer I play the longer the character graphics start to leave me unimpressed.  The detail of the game world is great, but the characters kind of look awkward and too similar to DA:O for my liking for a next-gen game.  The characters also kind of move in a jerky, awkward way.

 

One of my companions must have dropped below the threshold of like/dislike, because he's got a big 'X' through his name and cannot be selected when picking a party for quests.  And this is after I had a cutscene where we shared a drink and he praised me for being the type of person this world needs.  The hypocrite.

 

The character graphics remind you of Origin? For real? I'm not trying to pick an argument but on a good rig the character models in inquisition are some of the best around. Even on a PS3 they look quite nice and are certainly more impressive to look at than Origins' also nice but nowhere near as complex or detailed figures. The armour aesthetic is also so much more varied and the fact that companions gets a personalised look for each set is just such a nice touch and improvement. And the lighting, the cloth physics both of which add so much to the quality of what you see in-game. I haven't noticed anything bad about the animations either. You aren't the only to complain about the graphics but I personally struggle to see anything that doesn't look fantastic in Inquisition. 

 

Sorry by the way, I get that it's just your opinion and you can't be wrong for not liking something but it's hard to accept that comparison after 30 hours so far of being absolutely awed by everything. They even jars of bees. Bees, Anakin! Majesticly animated bees!

Edited December 3, 2014 by Serrano

[GhostofAnakin]

Maybe I'm misremembering Origins since it's been a while since I played it.  The fine up-close detail is much nicer (ie. close ups of the characters' faces in cut scenes), but I don't see the massive leap forward that I'd expected from a next gen game.

 

In any case, with regards to the character animations looking stilted/jerky, it's largely when the character is walking.  They walk ... strange in cutscenes, like they're constantly walking into a strong wind -- arms bent and pumping, knees bent, body leaning forward, ass sticking out.

 

I dunno.  The overall scenery is spot on and beautiful, such as the mountains or trees in the background or the water crashing on the shore.  I'm just not blown away by how the characters look/move during cutscenes/conversations.

[Rosbjerg]

I think you are, Inq' looks pretty good. They got rid of that plastic look, but I do see some similarities though.

 

 

[Tale]

Played more Shadows of Mordor, killed my first Warchief!

 

What surprised me is he brought a bodyguard, but I intentionally killed his. This guy claimed to be someone I'd killed before, but darned if I remember him. I don't know if he's the same bodyguard or a different guy the Warchief picked up as a replacement.

 

Took me a little while to figure out a strategy and I had to run away and heal a few times, which made it all the more exciting. The shield guys were really the only trouble to be had in it, so I would take my time at range picking them off with a bow before running in and smacking the Warchief around. Doing a stun, combo, finisher is seeming a bit overpowered. Heck, I killed the bodyguard in one combo that way.

 

Edit: Also, I was doing a bow mission and right before I get the last kill a Captain shows up. Trying to deal with him another Captain shows up. I plug the first Captain with an arrow to complete the mission and try wrestling with the second Captain. Then my frickin Nemeses shows up. I quickly dispatch Captain 2 with the stun-combo, and try to do it to my Nemesis. Sadly, he's immune to almost everything except the thing nobody's immune to. Drain. So I stand there and drain him to death.

 

Drain is also overpowered if you can get the enemy alone.

[TheChris92]

Inquisition -- Might be one of my favorite BioWare games. Better than any of the Mass Effect games for certain.

A bit of GAIMES of THRONES on the side too.

[Volourn]

"Better than any of the Mass Effect games for certain."

 

Hell to the no.

[Serrano]

If anyone playing Dragon Age Inquisition is wondering if they should buy that $10,000 chest, don't. Just don't. It's not even remotely worth it. 

[ShadySands]

I got a laugh out of it