What are you playing right now

[GhostofAnakin]

Done the DLC in Skyrim.  Just finished my fight with Miraak (or is it Miirak).  That was tremendously clunky fighting on a dragon.  Who actually thought that would be fun?

[Lexx]

It was still a good dlc, though. I liked it quite a lot even though I am usually not a fan of Bethesda "rpg" stuff.

[melkathi]

FFXV is just charming the heck out of me. I'm really bonding with these people, and riding a chocobo makes me grin like a madman.

You are a madman - you are just grinning like yourself then

[Oner]

- One is the part where the Overmind is a corrupted good guy, because good lord Blizzard, can you write nothing else?

People do get this bit wrong often. The Overmind wasn't meant to be a good guy (Blizz admittedt that they failed to convey this properly, though I didn't have a problem interpreting it), it was more like Nurgle in WH40k: Big Papa Zerg who loves his little rascal alien monsters. It didn't want the Zerg to be toys. Now I'm not saying it's not a retcon, it probably is. But it's not a 180 degrees turn like a lot of other things in SC2 were.

[Blarghagh]

Yeah like I said, all we heard was how Zeratul and ghost Tassadar interpreted it ('bravest creature I ever knew'). And ghost Tassadar is probably lying considering the later twist.

[IamNOOB]

PLAYING a great card game: Gwent. It is a part of the Witcher games. In my view, it is a better card game than the so-famous Hearthstone. People should try Gwent, it is fun

[Keyrock]

PLAYING a great card game: Gwent. It is a part of the Witcher games. In my view, it is a better card game than the so-famous Hearthstone. People should try Gwent, it is fun

CDPR are making a standalone version of Gwent.  I think it's in beta right now.

[IamNOOB]

It is a beta but somehow I got access to it......It is fun. They introduced a ladder system some days ago/ last week - not so sure when. But I m playing it now.

[Tale]

Finished Legacy of the Void. Yeah, the epilogue was kind of crap. Heck, that final mission was double crap. Yeah, let's stick some targets on floating islands when I have the worst fliers in the game. That's a good one.

 

Edit: Checked out Zombi for about an hour, I have it from PS+. So very dull.

[Majek]

Doing fireworks in Doom to pass into new year. OH well.

[Keyrock]

Edit: Checked out Zombi for about an hour, I have it from PS+. So very dull.

The only interesting part about Zombi U was stripped out of the game when it became Zombi, and that was the second screen functionality of the Wii U controller.

 

I've warmed up to DX:MD.  The game finally gave me an antagonist, even if said antagonist is merely a puppet, which makes it a lot easier to get invested in it.  Plus, I've ventured into more interesting, less Half-Life 2-like, parts of Prague.  

 

Also, I jumped back into Shadow Tactics and am playing what is seemingly the final mission, though I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't be.  This is the first time I get to use all 5 characters in the same mission and they really ramped up the difficulty here, reducing the amount of solid hiding places and forcing me to have multiple characters act simultaneously more often.  This game continues to impress me with its level design.  I can't speak highly enough about how well each mission is crafted.  I have to devise some really crafty plans to get past the challenges.  With more and more moving parts it become increasingly more difficult to get the timing just right and keep track of all the enemies close enough to ruin my plans.

[Bartimaeus]

Pony Island. Some people are acting like it's on the same level as Undertale, but eh, it was just decent for a dollar and a half or so.

[Vaeliorin]

You know, I'd really like a way to play some of these missions in Starcraft 2 with other factions.  For example, I'd like to try the "End of the Universe" mission from Wings of Liberty with Terrans instead of Protoss.  Heck, I'd like to try it with Legacy of the Void protoss instead of Wing of Liberty protoss. 

 

Anyway, I finished Heart of the Swarm (which was less horrible than I was expecting.  I hated playing Zerg in Starcraft 1 (and never finished the campaign because there were zerg missions I just couldn't beat) but the changes in Starcraft 2 make them much more playable to me (mostly roaches...the roaches that spawn roachlings are awesome.  Never will I have to use another zergling again!)  I did make one evolution choice which kind of came back to bite me in the butt, which was the flying locusts for swarm hosts (but I picked all the left hand upgrades like I did in Wing of Liberty, and next playthrough shall be all right hand upgrades, with third playthrough being pick the best) because it means that units that can only attack ground units ignore the locusts and go straight for the swarm host.

 

I do wish that there had been some story choices like in Wings of Liberty (regardless of how small the difference it makes) just so the next playthrough would be a little bit different in terms of missions.  Legacy of the Void looks like it's going to be even worse in terms of choices, because it seems like none of the choices are permanent (neither units nor the spending of solarite.)

[Tale]

It was nice in Wings of Liberty to see missions from the other side for Colonists/Protoss and Tosh/Nova.

 

Anyway, I've been jumping around games a bit trying to find something to really excite me and grab my attention. I tried some Pathologic and it's not gripping me. But I'd like to keep coming back to it. Tried some Dropsy and the game is so weird it refuses to label its save/load stuff except in pictograms. So when I accidentally loaded instead of saving, I just wasn't compelled to hop right back on the horse. Installed The Evil Within with the intent to play that, but only ran it long enough to see that it does indeed run okay on my system. And then settled finally on Final Fantasy VI. It's about time I finished that game after however long it's been since I bought it back on the PSOne.

 

I've bought so many JRPGs this past half year, I have to start making headway through them.

[Keyrock]

I finished Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.  Good game.  I'd say it was a small step forward in terms of gameplay and a slight step back in terms of story as compared to Human Revolution.  I just think the story took too long to get going, plus the game had a big lack of compelling characters.  The characters I found most interesting were K, Melania, and Duncan; it's a shame none of them played a bigger part in the game.  Overall, though, I think this was a very small step forward over HR.  Not the bigger step forward I had hoped it would be, but progress nevertheless.  I got the Pacifist achievement on this Give Me A Challenge playthrough for not killing anyone, not even

Marchenko

 I also managed to

both stop Marchenko from detonating the bombs and save the delegates

though I failed to

save Miller since I saved Allison instead of getting the info from the bank

I plan to do another playthrough eventually on New Game+ Give Me Deus Ex difficulty and play the game bloodbath style, killing enemies indiscriminately, and all of them, if possible.  

 

As an aside, for the love of God, if your end credits sequence is going to be that long, please please please, with a cherry on top, include a key I can press to speed it up.  I always watch the credits to make sure there isn't a bonus scene, and, sure enough, DX:MD included one.  I won't pretend I saw it coming, but I wasn't surprised by it either.  The character that pulls the Russo Swerve is one that I had some suspicions about during the game.

 

Next up I need to finish Shadow Tactics.  While this is a game I praise heartily (you've probably seen me blow my load all over it here plenty of times), it's not a game I can play in long stretches (unlike Deus Ex, for example).  It's just too mentally taxing a game for me to play for extended periods of time, I usually stick to hour long sessions at most.  There is so much planning and so many moving parts to keep track of at all times that it wears me out quickly.  Still, I should be close to the end now, plus a game this mentally taxing is all the sweeter when you beat it.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Keyrock

[Majek]

How many missions are there in Shadow Tactics?

[Oner]

Bought XCOM 2 a few months ago, but couldn't actually run it - oops.
Now I upgraded my PC and it crashes at startup.
*sigh*

[Keyrock]

How many missions are there in Shadow Tactics?

At least 10.  I just finished the 9th, which, at first, was set up like it would be the final mission.  I suspected otherwise and was correct as there was a PLOT TWIST!  Mission 9 was ruthlessly difficult and I now have developed an intense hatred of chickens.  Also, these missions would be a bit easier if I hadn't made a promise to myself to kill no civilians.  They would still be difficult missions, but there are certain parts that would be made much easier if I just shed a bit of innocent blood.  I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself as I managed to kill 5 guards at the same time in the last mission using 3 characters simultaneously.  It took me many attempts to get the set up and timing just right to pull it off, but it was so damn satisfying when I finally made it work. 

[Vaeliorin]

As an aside, for the love of God, if your end credits sequence is going to be that long, please please please, with a cherry on top, include a key I can press to speed it up.  I always watch the credits to make sure there isn't a bonus scene, and, sure enough, DX:MD included one.

I always feel compelled to watch the credits of any game I enjoyed, but I swear Wings of Liberty tested my patience.  I think that was the longest credits I've ever seen, including Kickstarter games that listed all their backers.  Who thought they needed to list all their customer service reps, from every region of the world?

 

Also, it didn't have particularly good music, and the backgrounds repeated too much,

 

Honestly, I think the best credits I've seen lately were DA:I's.  Cassandra reading Varric's book was pretty freaking hilarious.

[Tale]

I find myself all the way in the World of Ruin now. Shadow's alive and so is Cid. I didn't even know the former was possible.

[Orogun01]

 

How many missions are there in Shadow Tactics?

At least 10.  I just finished the 9th, which, at first, was set up like it would be the final mission.  I suspected otherwise and was correct as there was a PLOT TWIST!  Mission 9 was ruthlessly difficult and I now have developed an intense hatred of chickens.  Also, these missions would be a bit easier if I hadn't made a promise to myself to kill no civilians.  They would still be difficult missions, but there are certain parts that would be made much easier if I just shed a bit of innocent blood.  I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself as I managed to kill 5 guards at the same time in the last mission using 3 characters simultaneously.  It took me many attempts to get the set up and timing just right to pull it off, but it was so damn satisfying when I finally made it work. 

 

I'm still at mission 3...

 

I've moved on to Darkest Dungeon and I'm loving it, a game has never made me feel so depressed and close to insanity. Really gets that whole Lovecraft thing down.

[Darkpriest]

still playing DAI.... damn it's a slog.... I mean, there are things that i like and dislike. They worked on this game and it shows, but the MMO type crap design for crafting is just killing it. I am an effin' equal to kings and I have to run and pick stuff myself? are they stupid? They should have just work on that more on the council map, but there is so much stuff on it that wasting time on resources is "meh" as well. I think that they should have made all resources same style as logging camps and stone mines, and alter crafting from there. I understand things like super rare materials guarded by some strong enemies, but other than that. it's just a pain in the ass.

 

I have completed Hinterlands, western approach, fallow mire, stormcoast, crestwood, and I am about to complete exalted plains plus went through a few story missions and got an old friend advisor - and there is still a **** ton of content to explore (at least 6 maps plus story content) and i've spent  (62h?) on this already... Can't complain on the amount of content, I just wish the crafting would be better done.

 

Another part is combat... it's just mindless work through HP sponges most of the time. I have yet to meet a challenge. Dragons are just overbloated HP pools.

[Fenixp]

Yeah I still don't think Dragon Age Inquisition has much of a place in a world where Witcher 3 and Dragon's Dogma exist.
 

I've moved on to Darkest Dungeon and I'm loving it, a game has never made me feel so depressed and close to insanity. Really gets that whole Lovecraft thing down.

Darkest Dungeon is such a ballsy game. It's a game specifically designed to depress player, to make him feel powerless and to put him into situations which are out of his control - but not often enough to break him and let him put the game down soon, oooh no, Darkest Dungeon'll work on you for dozens of hours before you feel utterly drained, get up, and uninstall the game, because depression and nervous strain is not exactly what we play videogames for, right?

But then you remember Darkest Dungeon, install it and go through the motions yet again, knowing all too well what awaits you. Designing a game specifically for players to give up on it out of sheer desperation and frustration, yet making it just satisfying and engaging enough to keep player intrigued for dozens of hours is one of the bravest design decisions I've seen lately - and I both applaud and hate Red Hook for it, because those are exactly emotions I'd say a Lovecraftian game should strive to inspire.
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu3GHeVaLew

Edited January 3, 2017 by Fenixp

[Darkpriest]

The big advantage of TW3 is that it has a pre-defined character which you will be playing, so it is easier to make quests related to this character, in DAI you can have such varied backgrounds that going too deep is simply not possible.

[Vaeliorin]

Yeah I still don't think Dragon Age Inquisition has much of a place in a world where Witcher 3 and Dragon's Dogma exist.

Honestly, I preferred DA:I to Dragon's Dogma.  But that's mostly because I found the camera in Dragon's Dogma to be completely terrible.  I found it nearly impossible to keep track of enemies, and often had trouble even noticing them before they were attacking because they blended into the background so much.  All of that could have been alleviated if the camera just zoomed out further.  Also, I prefer real companions to pawns, and found the story in Dragon's Dogma to be severely lacking (this isn't to say DA:I is a masterpiece of storytelling, but I found Dragon's Dogma's story incredibly threadbare.)  When the camera wasn't being awful, the combat in Dragon's Dogma was certainly better, though.