What are you playing right now

[SadExchange]

Picked up Dark Souls 3 for the pc and enjoying the smoother 60 fps of the pc as compared to the console.  Been a long time since i put time into the console version, trying to figure out what to put my points in.  Not gonna go magic, but was wondering for those pure builds that put points into just strength and dex, should I also be putting points into Vigor and Endurance to help out as well?

[Lexx]

That just reminded me we still don't have any dlc for that game, no? I remember they announced some expensive PvP only dlc which was extremely disappointing.

[GhostofAnakin]

Started a brand new game of Witcher 3.  I'm guessing it's going to be awhile before I'll be at a level to take on the two expansions.

[Nonek]

Thought i'd take a break from Thief Gold with a little action, downloaded Revenant off of GOG, mainly for the excellent combat and beautiful Ronny Moorings/Patrick Collins soundtrack. At first I couldn't start the game, however once i'd removed the Winmm.dll file from the root menu there was no longer any conflict and it's now running smoothly.

 

Edit: Turn off preloading of sectors, otherwise the game will be stopping to load every few minutes.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Nonek

[Drowsy Emperor]

Dark Souls.

 

Found a Zweihander, promptly upgraded it to +5. Also Elite Knight Armor. 

 

I'm steamrolling Darkroot garden, one-shotting everything except the green knights and crystal golems which are all terribly slow. Dunno if I'm overleveled for the area at SL 31 or what but the difficulty has dropped off a lot. 

 

Destroyed the 2 Bell Gargoyles as well.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Drowsy Emperor

[Bendu]

That just reminded me we still don't have any dlc for that game, no? I remember they announced some expensive PvP only dlc which was extremely disappointing.

DLC is out by the end of October and it's not PvP only. My best guess right now is to expect an Artorias of the Abyss DLC (a singleplayer campaign with a PvP arena).

[Gorgon]

I kinda wanna play Bloodborne, not like I'm getting a console just for that though. Other than that... wait two months for dishonoured I suppose. 

[Tale]

I told myself I was done with it, but I just reinstalled and bought the season pass for Battlefront. I had lots of fun with it before the DLCs came out, and decided to check out all the new stuff.

 

So far so good.

[Mamoulian War]

Got gifted Soulcalibur 5 from my friends. I have not played any beat em up in ages, so I am trying to get some trophies, I really do not know, whether they gave me the game because they love me, or because they hate me. *shrugs*

[Gorgon]

Got the Doom reboot because a couple of people said it plays old school, like before the age of cover based health regeneration. Downloading nearly 55 gigs. What the hell. 

[Fenixp]

a couple of people said it plays old school

To an extent. It's still different from, say, old Doom games.

 

Downloading nearly 55 gigs. What the hell.

Textures folder alone is 36 gigs. The game is kind of gorgeous. 10 gigs is sound. It also sounds great (not to mention the incredible soundtrack) Edited September 20, 2016 by Fenixp

[quidproquo]

More of the Daily Chthonicle. Definitely like the psychiatric facet. Classic Lovecraftian angle. Interface is clunky and graphics are... medieval, but the gameplay is surprisingly addictive. Very simple concept. Experimenting with different items is good, but even having read the whole manual, I suspect that some things are still opaque. Finished enough stories to close and print an extra or whatever it's called. Like to be methodical, so tried tutorial first and now easy. Going to do the medium next and if I still like the game it'll be hard, baby!

[melkathi]

The dev was mentioning on Steam that there are certain things going on backstage that affect the effectiveness of items in different situations, but he was not giving more detail so people could not have a guaranteed I Win strategy.

[sorophx]

Spintires has devoured me for good. It's probably the most innovative game I've played in a long time. The gameplay isn't only unique but very deep. You have to manage your resources, strategically place them, which promotes exploration. The maps are beautiful. This technology is very cool. And I'm not only talking about the morphing terrain stuff. This game probably has the best grass + foliage I've seen in a while. Lighting is awesome, day/night cycle... The only thing that's missing is rain. 

 

I've yet to try it online with other players, but unless  the net code is absolutely awful it can only get better. Seriously, guys, you all need to try it. This is a puzzle/adventure game with trucks. What's not to like? It's been worth every dollar I paid for it.

 

[Drowsy Emperor]

Watching some Witcher 3 Hearts of Stone gameplay since I don't have anything to play it on. My laptop can't do over 30 fps in it, for shame.

 

It looks like they really did it this time, the writing seems much better handled, the characters more interesting - I actually want to play it, whereas with the second Witcher my gut feeling that the game was going to be a lukewarm experience turned out right.

 

When I look at the game its amazing how far CDPR has come in such a short time - it took Bioware years to do something resembling a cinematic RPG experience, never really matching  the same scope and ambition Baldur's Gate had. Seemingly, the Witcher 3 manages to do it. Dragon Age Inquisiton looks a generation or two behind by comparison.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Drowsy Emperor

[Wrath of Dagon]

Bioware has been phoning it in for quite some time. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

[quidproquo]

Well, melkathi, the whiskey has yet to be cited as a reason I succeeded, but I often bring it anyway in the hopes that it will. In the short time I've had it, spent a lot of that time on it. Tip my hat.

 

Oh, I never mention Pathfinder adventures from the Obsidian app, but I play that regularly every day. Guilty admission to disgust the lot of you, I play it whenever I visit the loo. phone goes in there with me. Why not multitask?

 

Oh my Lord, just had whiskey come in handy against.... a wall?!?!! I'll post a screenie of it in the screenshot thread.

Edited September 21, 2016 by quidproquo

[Fenixp]

I'm playing DOOM again. It's Gorgon's fault.

 

I suppose I'm still playing Mankind Divided, but lack of any reasonable narrative consistency is slowly turning me off the game. Level design is pretty great for the most part and yes, often mentioned bank is fantastic, but it still fails in creating believable levels as far as I'm concerned - individual levels are essentially series of tubes, saying "Can you hack? All right, follow this path. Did you find a vent? Okay, follow this path. Do you want to just shoot everybody? Cool, this path is for you."

 

I have ended up installing the original Deus Ex with the GMDX mod (thanks for that, Nonek, wouldn't even know it exists without you) and the game's level design just holds up so damn well - and it works a lot better with the mod as well. Liberty Island is an exemplary introduction level. I'll probably hold onto playing it a bit longer, but the game shows us how very superficially Square Enix understands it.

 

never really matching  the same scope and ambition Baldur's Gate had. Seemingly, the Witcher 3 manages to do it.

Not sure how about you, but for me, a big part of BG's scope was also my ability to role-play just about anything (the game wasn't too reactive about it but hey, I like Elder Scrolls) and to completely change playstyle just by swapping companions. Witcher 3 is a lot more limited in that respect - the world is huge, the quests are epic, some stories are absolutely stellar, but no matter what you do, you are and always will be Geralt of Rivia, a Witcher - and your decisions will always be constrained by this. Gameplay also eventually gets rather repetitive, without much you could do to make it more interesting. Eh, I suppose that's the main reason as to why Pillars of Eternity was my GOTY of 2015 as opposed to Witcher 3. Edited September 21, 2016 by Fenixp

[Caeyrii]

Spiderweb Software's latest title has come out. Avadon 3 wraps the trilogy quite nicely. I like the way he handled skills in it, energy bar with cooldown. Some nuances here and there about it. I think Obsidian could take a cue from it(though Tyranny is already leaning away from the Vancian system).

[Mamoulian War]

Got gifted Soulcalibur 5 from my friends. I have not played any beat em up in ages, so I am trying to get some trophies, I really do not know, whether they gave me the game because they love me, or because they hate me. *shrugs*

 

Now I definitely know, that they hate me!

 

Tried yesterday Arcade on Hard mode for the trophy. The creators of this game must love torturing kittens for sure. I do not know, when was the last time, when I felt so much frustration with game, I played O.o Especially the last fight in Asia route, he must have been on all energy inducing drugs known to the mankind, in fist 15 minutes, I was almost unable to land even one hit on him... He was so ridiculously fast and was changing his battle style every round. I few times thrown my controller into pillow (I was clever to put it on the ground near my chair before I started to play this game ) This game is really not meant to be played by old farts as me...

 

I got ass kicked again and again and again, and my pillow started to cry, but after I was not willing to give up for maybe an hour or so, with little bit of luck, I finally kicked this kids ass. Maan, I bet, I woke up few neighbours with my TAKE THIS, YOU ****SUCKING MOTHER****ER SON OF A BITCH (of course in Slovak language), after I landed finishing blow on him :D

[melkathi]

I think the whiskey bottle was cited as useful in your door scenario, because Sir Henry was disturbed and the drink kept him focused.

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

never really matching  the same scope and ambition Baldur's Gate had. Seemingly, the Witcher 3 manages to do it.

Not sure how about you, but for me, a big part of BG's scope was also my ability to role-play just about anything (the game wasn't too reactive about it but hey, I like Elder Scrolls) and to completely change playstyle just by swapping companions. Witcher 3 is a lot more limited in that respect - the world is huge, the quests are epic, some stories are absolutely stellar, but no matter what you do, you are and always will be Geralt of Rivia, a Witcher - and your decisions will always be constrained by this. Gameplay also eventually gets rather repetitive, without much you could do to make it more interesting. Eh, I suppose that's the main reason as to why Pillars of Eternity was my GOTY of 2015 as opposed to Witcher 3.

 

 

The thing is, all that applies to Mass Effect series, arguably the best thing Bioware made since Baldur's Gate except its all much worse there. The world is tiny, the combat is reptitive, the entire universe revolves around Shepard etc. The old argument used to be that it would be too expensive to make a massive cinematic 3D game - one where the graphics would be the best that can be done up close but with a size that compares to the 2D generation. CDPR showed that it can be done.

 

 I don't find being a more defined character negatively impacting my enjoyment, because I have no problem being a "passenger" - watching someone else's adventure. Fundamentally what I want is to enjoy a good story and an interesting world and games that are extremely open as a rule fall apart in the narrative department. Even the world suffers because it "has" to be huge so its full of poorly disguised copy-paste content. The character on the other hand, whether he's the Bhaalspawn from BG2, Geralt, Nameless One, Tidus of FFX etc. provides context for the whole experience. Some characters are more open-ended than others but most of the time its just the illusion of choice anyway - the Bhaalspawn had 3 fundamental responses to most situations and so does Geralt (don't get involved, be nice, don't be nice). It just feels like you have more options because you can choose your class and party composition and fiddle around with these systems. The counter-argument is that Geralt is basically the three stock DnD classes rolled into one so you have just as much variety...

[melkathi]

One of my intrepid reporters/investigators at the Daily Chthonicle got excommunicated - collateral damage when one of our informants went crazy after witnessing a person devoured by hellhounds. The priest in question decided to go full necro and got discovered by the church.

Luckily we were able to track him down, subdue him and hand him over to the authorities.

[Rosbjerg]

 

The thing is, all that applies to Mass Effect series

 

Somewhat- the character was certainly locked into being Human and a Spectre, but from there you had freedom to be any class, either gender - and as for personality either diplomatic, ruthless or in between. With your choices in previous game affecting who you meet and how they respond to you.

 

While with Geralt you're locked to a story background, a baseline personality (with some wiggleroom) and baseline abilities.. With the only offset being that he is fortunately well written..

[Wrath of Dagon]

I suppose I'm still playing Mankind Divided, but lack of any reasonable narrative consistency is slowly turning me off the game. Level design is pretty great for the most part and yes, often mentioned bank is fantastic, but it still fails in creating believable levels as far as I'm concerned - individual levels are essentially series of tubes, saying "Can you hack? All right, follow this path. Did you find a vent? Okay, follow this path. Do you want to just shoot everybody? Cool, this path is for you."

That's how I felt about HR, too bad that hasn't changed.