What are you playing right now?

[Keyrock]

I'm having a blast with Xenoblade Chronicles X.  Some compromises clearly had to be made to get a steady framerate on the Wii U's hardware.  The game has a lot of pop in.  It's disguised quite well in outdoor areas and I don't notice it most of the time, but inside the city it's very noticeable and, quite honestly, jarring.  Also, things like bushes and tall grass don't move or rustle when you run through them, you just pass through them like they're illusions.  That said, I can't emphasize enough how huge and great the world outside the city is.  It looks freakin' amazing.  It gives me a bit of the same feeling I got when I first played Morrowind, because the landscape is so weird and alien looking.  It's way more fun to explore than something like Skyrim, which looks nice, but it's familiar looking.  It's going to get even better once I get a skell (mech) to pilot, though I have no idea how long that will take.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Keyrock

[Luridis]

I do have one complaint about the D3 console design. Because of the sofa cooperative mode, the moved the default HUD to the lower left corner. This creates a focus-fixation problem for the player. D3 is an action based RPG where movement is important to avoid damage etc. That in itself isn't a problem. They also have cool down mechanics, which also aren't a problem. However, when you introduce gear, or any other random mechanic, that reduces those cool downs as part of a performance metric, you create a focus problem: Where am I supposed to look? My cool downs or the battle? Inevitably, the human eye is drawn in by concentration to one or the other. So, you end up with only two options...

 

Look at cool downs and get smashed, burnt, tossed, etc. by the center screen action. Or, watch the center screen and either lose efficiency due to missed early cool downs or spam buttons and listen to "I can't do that yet." till you end up muting the game. The lead designer was remiss by by not including center screen notifications for things like health and cool downs after moving the UI from view. It would be less an issue on PC, but consoles are typically connected to televisions and keeping the HUD in peripheral vision is near impossible.

 

All that said, I still think they did a good job. But, I'd be happier if the designers actually put it on a big screen and tested it themselves, they'd have definitely noticed the issues with HUD being essentially invisible on a large screen during heavy action. The resource globe is the worst of the lot, I can't see it at all unless I glance away from the center screen.

[HoonDing]

Kind of ironic that a game like Alice: Madness Returns that deals with such themes as child prostitution and paedophilila was developed in China and published by EA.

 

Of couse, it deals with those themes allegorically.

[GhostofAnakin]

Amazon's taking forever to re-stock Batman Arkham Knight.  I ordered it during the Black Friday sale so I'd get it for like $30 off, but it's still not in stock yet.

[Keyrock]

Mostly Xenoblade Chroncles X.  This game makes the land area in Skyrim look tiny by comparison.  I've only just made my first forays into the another area of the game called Noctilium.  The area you start in, the area around New Los Angeles, is called Primordia.  It's mostly a plain, though it's pretty hilly in some areas and has some fairly tall rock formations, including some that seem to defy gravity, though gravity seems like it's a lot lower on this planet than on Earth, judging by how high you can jump.  From New Los Angeles, which is located in the southern center of Primordia, going northwest, it takes me nearly 20 minutes running in as straight a line as I can at full sprint to reach Noctilium.  Noctilium is a lush jungle/swamp area filled with huge colorful flowers and gargantuan...  vines, I guess, that you can run on top of.  It's all types of awesome looking.  There are 5 areas in total, I guess I could call them continents, though that may be overstating their size a bit.  Large islands, I guess.  I can't wait to see the other 3, but I'm only scratching the surface of Noctilium.  From what I've read, the estimate of time to complete the main story is between 70-80 hours, and well over 200 hours if you want to do and explore everything.

 

Besides that, I'm still playing Bound by Flame.  The game sure does make you travel down the same paths again and again.  I've gone through the same 3 areas of swamp 4 or 5 times each now, it's starting to give me scary flashbacks of DA2.  Luckily, the combat is really fun, so hacking through the same bunch of beasties in said swamps is enjoyable.  Still, I hope I get to move on to a different area soon.

[the_dog_days]

Mostly Xenoblade Chroncles X. This game makes the land area in Skyrim look tiny by comparison. I've only just made my first forays into the another area of the game called Noctilium. The area you start in, the area around New Los Angeles, is called Primordia. It's mostly a plain, though it's pretty hilly in some areas and has some fairly tall rock formations, including some that seem to defy gravity, though gravity seems like it's a lot lower on this planet than on Earth, judging by how high you can jump. From New Los Angeles, which is located in the southern center of Primordia, going northwest, it takes me nearly 20 minutes running in as straight a line as I can at full sprint to reach Noctilium. Noctilium is a lush jungle/swamp area filled with huge colorful flowers and gargantuan... vines, I guess, that you can run on top of. It's all types of awesome looking. There are 5 areas in total, I guess I could call them continents, though that may be overstating their size a bit. Large islands, I guess. I can't wait to see the other 3, but I'm only scratching the surface of Noctilium. From what I've read, the estimate of time to complete the main story is between 70-80 hours, and well over 200 hours if you want to do and explore everything.

 

Besides that, I'm still playing Bound by Flame. The game sure does make you travel down the same paths again and again. I've gone through the same 3 areas of swamp 4 or 5 times each now, it's starting to give me scary flashbacks of DA2. Luckily, the combat is really fun, so hacking through the same bunch of beasties in said swamps is enjoyable. Still, I hope I get to move on to a different area soon.

Her's my question, does the main plot feel artificially inflated like DA:I did (due to grinding and influence points requirements--the central plot is actually really short)?

[Keyrock]

 

Her's my question, does the main plot feel artificially inflated like DA:I did (due to grinding and influence points requirements--the central plot is actually really short)?

 

To be honest, I've barely touched the main plot.  The little bit of main plot I've gotten so far has come sporadically.  You're given some direction at the very beginning; plant a probe at this location, go look for the missing team, they were last spotted here.  After that, the orders given to you are extremely general, basically explore the planet, gather resources, plant probes, look for other pieces of the ship.  There are side missions that will give you specific places to go and specific things to do, but the overall general directive is just "explore".  Along the way you stumble into things or an event will trigger based on some criteria that will then advance the story.  I don't know if it becomes more structured at some point, but it's mostly do your own thing and explore and stuff will happen at some point.  So far it's not a very story driven game, like a Bethesda game except it's an awesome looking weird alien planet instead of boring familiar looking stuff.

Edited December 9, 2015 by Keyrock

[kirottu]

I finished Jade Empire couple days back and the experience was the same as it was years ago when I played it on my brothers xbox. After 10 hours of playing I turned the difficulty to easy not because it was hard, but because I had seen everything it had to offer. This applies to pretty much everything Jade Empire has to offer from combat mechanics to lore to morality choices... Everything feels shallow and simplistic.

 

Also this is the absolutely wrong game for enemies to have immunities. Making me to use even less styles in combat doesn't make the combat more difficult, it just makes the combat even more shallow.

 

Still the setting and combat are different enough to keep me entertained for 10 hours and then finish the game. 7/10

[melkathi]

One of m,y Brethren, Telork just reached max level. He reached max level without ever getting injured. Which is quite a feat in Mordheim, especially as he was one of my initial line-up and not someone I recruited at high level and babysitted to get the achievement.

It is quite possible that he never got hit at all. Except for that terrible fight with the bloodletter. Then again, he was one of two people still standing when the Purple Toe ran away that day (bravely ran away).

If I didn't need him at henchman level, I'd promote him to hero - he'd deserve it.

[TheChris92]

Almost finished playing Yakuza 4 -- Love this series

 

Also finished Book 4 of Chapters recently -- Definitely the best 'chapter' of the game so far. It's starting to feel like Dreamfall more than ever now.

[Longknife]

Unboxed a fancy shmancy €81 weapon in TF2. Someone go buy it so I can use your money on stupid stuff: http://steamcommunity.com/market/listings/440/Unusual%20Forest%20Fire%20Flame%20Thrower%20%28Minimal%20Wear%29

[Nonek]

Mordheim...Nuffle still hates me.

[Keyrock]

I scooped up Fast Racing Neo.  My thoughts on the game:

 

 

It's exactly what I was hoping it would be.  It is the illegitimate love child of F-Zero and WipE'out".  It's set up exactly like Mario Kart: 4 circuits of 4 tracks each at 3 speed classes.  Even on Subsonic (50cc) the game feels holy **** fast.  I can't wait to unlock the faster classes.  

 

I'll try to get some screenshots, but it's hard because the game is so intense, but the game looks AMAZING.  Standing still you can see a good bit of jaggies, anti-aliasing is something they surely had to sacrifice to get the game to look this awesome and run at rock solid 60 FPS on the WII U's hardware, but at speed you'll never see it and the tracks, lighting effects, everything looks freakin' awesome.  I don't know what manner of dark ritual Shin'en had to do and how many virgins they had to sacrifice to make a game look this great and go that fast at rock solid 60 FPS on the Wii U's hardware, but god bless them.  I suspect they used some motion blur and depth of field tricks to make the game feel like it's moving faster than it actually is, but the feeling is all that matters.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Keyrock

[Katphood]

Finished Saints Row 4. A very fun game overall. I'll play the dlc's at a later time.

 

Decided to check out the Ratchet and Clank HD Trilogy. The visuals are so neat, they still hold up to this day. 

[Gizmo]

Shadowrun Returns, and having a great time with it.

[Keyrock]

I unlocked Supersonic League (essentially 100cc) in Fast Racing Neo.  This game sure lives up to its name.  Even in Subsonic League (50cc) the game is really fast and becomes a blur when you hit the boost.  In Supersonic League your regular top speed is about the same as the boost speed in Subsonic and boost just ridiculous.  You kind of have to have the courses memorized because stuff comes at you so fast that it's almost impossible to react if you don't know what's coming up.  I can't wait to see what boost looks like in Hypersonic League (150cc), that's going to be straight up ludicrous, but it might take me a while to unlock it.

 

I also reached what I assume is the final act in Bound by Flame.  My character is pretty damn powerful now and only boss tier enemies are a real threat unless they have me face a really large number of the strongest regular enemies.  Going full demon is definitely the way to go if you want to play a battlemage as before the mana pool was too shallow to effectively pull it off, but after the demon transformations mana regens fast enough that you can use magic liberally.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Keyrock

[Hurlshort]

Getting into the Divinity Directors Cut, and enjoying it tremendously.  The voice actors did a good job.

[HoonDing]

Nobody has as many friends as the man with many cheeses.

[trulez]

Getting into the Divinity Directors Cut, and enjoying it tremendously.  The voice actors did a good job.

This is good to know, I've been putting my seconds play through on hold because of some other games, but I'm eager to start the D:OS DC as soon as I find the time.

[ShadySands]

Back to LOTRO until SWTOR drops the next chapter of KOTFE and a patch for it

[GhostofAnakin]

Getting into the Divinity Directors Cut, and enjoying it tremendously.  The voice actors did a good job.

 

I keep hovering over the "buy it" button on Best Buy.  I'm just not sure if it'll be my kind of game.  Sounds like combat isn't very forgiving, and I'm not the sort who enjoys difficult combat; I'm more of a play it for the story with minimal trouble during combat encounters kind of guy.

[HoonDing]

Combat is all the game has going for it.

[Hurlshort]

 

Getting into the Divinity Directors Cut, and enjoying it tremendously.  The voice actors did a good job.

 

I keep hovering over the "buy it" button on Best Buy.  I'm just not sure if it'll be my kind of game.  Sounds like combat isn't very forgiving, and I'm not the sort who enjoys difficult combat; I'm more of a play it for the story with minimal trouble during combat encounters kind of guy.

 

 

You can drop the difficulty down to adventure level.  It still lets you do all the fun puzzle type stuff, but you won't get killed as much.  I recommend it, the story is entertaining.  Larian has this fairly whimsical take on fantasy that I've always enjoyed.

[Humanoid]

It's a good single player game, but it's a great co-op game, so if you can line-up a friend to play with it's an essential purchase.

 

 

I haven't played the EE so I can't comment on the revamped balancing, but the original release had a sort of inverse difficulty where most of the challenging fights will be in the first chapter. After that, XP gain snowballing usually means you can stay ahead of the curve. I played the game in "Lone Wolf" mode though, i.e. each player controlling a single character instead of two, which probably made things harder because we frequently were both stunned or frozen or whatever. It also means I don't know how playing with the companion NPCs works out.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Humanoid

[Hurlshort]

It seems like they added a few good companion NPC's as well.