What are you playing right now?

[Fenixp]

I can't stop playing Nier. I just can't. 7 hours in 2 days, just what the ****, game?

[Katphood]

And it gets better and better as you progress. I'm 11 hours in and this is possibly the best sequel ever made and GOTY 2017 for many gamers and critics alike.

 

 

 

Yooka-Laylee: if you're even remotely interested in titles such as Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Banjoo games, Conkers Bad Fur Day then you owe it to yourself to give this game a try, feels like a breath of fresh air. Also, performance is a rock solid 1080p @30fps on the PS4. 

Edited April 12, 2017 by Katphood

[Labadal]

Doing the Watcher's Keep in BGII. This place is a PITA like usual. I hope to wrap up my current playthrough of both SoA and ToB this week.

[Bartimaeus]

The thing that I hate about Watcher's Keep, is that I always do it way too early, like Chapter 2 of SoA early, so that it's a real challenge, particularly when you throw on Sword Coast Stratagems and the 50% XP reducer mod. And then I finish it, leave and go to Spellhold and realize that I'm ludicrously overleveled, and I lose interest in that playthrough. Should really start using that SCS component that makes it so it's not accessible until ToB...I always think I won't do it, and then I do. Whoops.

[Labadal]

The thing that I hate about Watcher's Keep, is that I always do it way too early, like Chapter 2 of SoA early, so that it's a real challenge, particularly when you throw on Sword Coast Stratagems and the 50% XP reducer mod. And then I finish it, leave and go to Spellhold and realize that I'm ludicrously overleveled, and I lose interest in that playthrough. Should really start using that SCS component that makes it so it's not accessible until ToB...I always think I won't do it, and then I do. Whoops.

I make the same mistake. This time, I waited until the last chapter before going in. I go there mostly because I feel like it is an obligation.

[Fenixp]

I'm 11 hours in and this is possibly the best sequel ever made and GOTY 2017 for many gamers and critics alike.

It's just so good. I hate the traditional Japanese quest design where you get 10 million quests of "fetch that" and "kill 5 of this" + the typical grind they have. It's all in Nier Automata as well. But the combat system is just so addictive and fun and narratively, the sidequests are often so weird that you stare at the screen and ask yourself what the hell is it that you're doing. When you do happen to stop and think that it's kinda dull, you suddenly notice the music and stop doing anything voluntarily just to listen to it anyway. And then the game asks "Aww, did I hurt your western sensibilities you little crybaby? Well here, have another bombshell." Yoko Taro just doesn't give a crap, he'll do what he'll do.

 

Edit:

“Due to the 2B butt controversy, many outrageous drawings are being made. Collecting them to share individually is a pain. It would be great if we can group them together to make it easier to distribute them every week.”

- Rough translation of Yoko Taro's reaction to 'sexism' in NieR: Automata. That man is a hero.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Fenixp

[Katphood]

Word. The soundtrack plays in my head even when I am not playing the game. Haven't been attached to a game OST like this since Max Payne 3. 

[Majek]

Best sequel ever is not something i would use for Nier Automata.

[Katphood]

I meant one of many. There are obviously other games, Uncharted 2 comes to mind...

Edited April 12, 2017 by Katphood

[SonicMage117]

This is off topic but ran across this video and it proves true to how shallow some rpg gamers can be today, sad, yet funny in a way...

 

 

Reason I'm posting it here is because I figure we are all of age to not be offended And I think most of us are not the type to think like the examples shown in the video.

[melkathi]

You'd be surprised what people on the internet can find offensive But this forum is quite safe on that front.

[Lexx]

I feel offended, because there actually was no romantic cutscene.

[Keyrock]

Yooka-Laylee runs like a champ.  At 1440p with max settings I was getting well over 90 fps pretty much always before I turned V-Sync on (my monitor only does 60 Hz, I'm a pleb like that  ).  Granted that's with a i7-4790k and Titan X (Maxwell), but still, it's respectable, especially given it's on Linux, where OpenGL performance tends to lag behind DX, unless the dev really knows their OpenGL (I'm pretty sure this doesn't run on Vulkan).

[Malcador]

Cosmonautica is a fun little game, near scare of failure so am just grinding out cash shipping around garbage, cigs and fertilizer until I get a bigger ship and can do passenger runs. Well worth $2

[Gorth]

I've been trying to get into Dragon Age: Inquisition recently. Really trying, spending hours on it. I just can't get hooked on it. Something about the game just feels "wrong". It's like it's completely devoid of life

 

Was thinking about either have a go at PS:T (GoG version) or try to have another go at Witcher II (would it make sense to try completing that one before Witcher III?).

[Katphood]

Was thinking about either have a go at PS:T (GoG version)

Go for it. I played the same version on my big screen and with a few patches installed it can look as pretty as any of the recent Enhanced Editions.

 

Here is a link to the mods I used.

 

I went for a 1366x768 resolution back then and it ended up looking like this:

 

 

 

 

[melkathi]

StarCrawlers

sponsored by ShadySands Great Game Giveaway

 

 

Overview:

StarCrawlers is a SciFi RPG in which the player is the captain of a crew of "crawlers", of guns for hire, mercenaries, people who get the job done, whatever you may want to call them. If you were to draw parallels you could think of the crew of the Firefly or a a crew of shadowrunners. Using a space station out in the fringes of known space as a base of operation, you take on missions for the various megacorps. And somewhere there is an overarching plot, but you can safely ignore it and take lucrative, random jobs.

 

 

---

 

Gameplay:

StarCrawlers takes the old rpg formula we remember from oldies such as Eye of the Beholder or the newer returns to that style like Legend of Grimrock and adapts them to a SciFi setting and proper turn-based combat.

What this means is: you walk around in first person, square by square, using WASD and QE to strafe, while the mouse allows you to look around and interact with your surroundings. When you encounter an enemy, and they enter combat range (or ambush you as part of an event), the screen changes to a battle screen, still first person, but quite similar to many RPGs of this type.

 

 

At the top of the screen you see the initiative order. In the example screenshot above, it is Shady's turn and he is about to hit a security droid with a Combo Strike. Each ability has different costs in Time Units, and various buffs and debuffs can, as one comes to expect, affect the initiative order (Labadal for example can learn to Overclock an ally and bring them forward by a hundred time units).

The good thing here is that there are interactions and combos between abilities, so there is opportunity for fun tactical play.

 

Outside of combat you explore the corridors and rooms of spaceships or corporate offices. They are usually fairly dark, but that is alright as you can simply turn on your suit's flashlight. What makes the exploration interesting are the many spots the party can interact with - the panels and terminals Hackers can try to hack, or the tight spaces only a Cyberninja can squeeze through.

 

 

or

 

 

Of course results are not always guaranteed to be positive

 

 

---

 

You, the player:

At the beginning of the game, you will create your character by picking one of the seven classes: Cyberninja, Engineer, Force Psyker, Hacker, Smuggler, Soldier, Void Psyker.

Then comes the fun part: creating the background! Each character has three stages in their backstory: Childhood, Adulthood, Now. For each class there are three options to choose from for each stage.

 

 

While the flavour of Childhood events differ from class to class, they all boil down to the choice between: Street Code, Formal Education, Street Culture. these can affect conversations in the game.

 

 

Adulthood and Now choices can directly affect your character's stats, their starting equipment, and or their standing with various factions.

 

Once in-game, you will be able to spend the first ability points of your character. Similar to Diablo and its derivatives, be it Borderlands or whatever, each class has three skill trees:

 

 

 

The inventory is rather basic, with 4 slots: weapon, armour, shield, accessory.

 

 

Though your background choices can result in some interesting starting items...

 

With the character created, the game begins with you arriving at STIX, your home for the duration of the game.

 

---

 

STIX:

 

 

STIX is the game's hub. Here you can buy and sell stuff, gamble for random loot, retrain your abilities, put stuff in your stash, hire new members for your party, and get missions. In this STIX is just like any other hub, be it a tavern or Tristram. But the hub has some nice detail that fit the setting. You can auction off sensitive loot through the black market dealer, and they may not have anyone directly interested and simply provide you with credits, but they may also get proper offers from factions.

 

 

 

TEC was not pleased with all the things that ended up in other corps' hands after that raid.

 

And if you don't want to leave your interactions with the megacorps to chance missions on the bounty board, why not call up their HQ and ask for a liaison?

 

 

OK, most likely they will put you on hold indefinitely. But once they know who you are, maybe there will come a time when they will pick up.

 

But if that is an alternative to the bounty board... what bounty board?

 

---

 

The Missions:

Most of your game time will be spend in missions, exploring, infiltrating, assaulting... all the good things and not so good things crews like yours get involved in.

 

 

You pick a mission you like, based on rewards, the reputation you wish to earn or lose, and the mission difficulty. Then you head in, do all the stuff we mentioned above, and hopefully walk back to your ship having successfully completed your objective. Sometimes, at least in the story missions, you may find side objectives. How you will handle those is up to you, but not everyone will necessarily like you afterwards.

 

 

---

 

The Writing:

Rather tongue in cheek, and mostly reserved for the various interactions during missions and some banter during the story - do not except long exposition. But it is worth at least a chuckle, and being short and non-intrusive will hopefully prevent it from becoming tedious in repetition.

 

 

Even if you end up arguing with Labadal about the possible value on the black market of a Tec-employee's porn stash.

Edited April 13, 2017 by melkathi

[SadExchange]

Ugh, no that work has picked up, (damn you real life) I feel like I'm pulling myself into too many directions to enjoy any game right.  Never really played JRPGs before but after 8 hours into Persona 5, damn, I don't know how to explain it.  Everything about this game should be something that I'm not the biggest fan of, but I keep finding myself wanting to play more and more, passing days, leveling my characters, figuring out the story, side content, etc.  Just really good and having a great time.  

 

Started a new character in ESO on the PS4 due to not having played in a long time and my brother-in-law is wanting me to level up and run dungeons with him.  I will say the extra experience going on right now as part of their promotion makes the leveling more fun.

 

Wanting to start Tides of Numenera when I get a few hours open to delve into the reading.  Time, time, come back to me....................

[Fenixp]

*sigh*

 

While trying to wrap up some side-quests in Nier: Automata, the extremely long end-game sequence suddenly triggered, leaving me unable to actually finish the sidequests I wanted to finish. Now I have gotten the ending 'A' along with a case of getting extremely annoyed.

 

I'll start a replay tomorrow I suppose, but... Ffs, preventing that kind of crap is basic design nowadays.

[the_dog_days]

Ugh, no that work has picked up, (damn you real life) I feel like I'm pulling myself into too many directions to enjoy any game right. Never really played JRPGs before but after 8 hours into Persona 5, damn, I don't know how to explain it. Everything about this game should be something that I'm not the biggest fan of, but I keep finding myself wanting to play more and more, passing days, leveling my characters, figuring out the story, side content, etc. Just really good and having a great time.

 

Started a new character in ESO on the PS4 due to not having played in a long time and my brother-in-law is wanting me to level up and run dungeons with him. I will say the extra experience going on right now as part of their promotion makes the leveling more fun.

 

Wanting to start Tides of Numenera when I get a few hours open to delve into the reading. Time, time, come back to me....................

For ESO there's individual level scaling now. So if you're in a level 5 dungeon at level 15, for you all those enemies are effectively level 15.

Edited April 14, 2017 by the_dog_days

[melkathi]

Hurlshot must be the unluckiest crawler in the game.

First mission on the team, Hurlshot grabs a hatch, rips it open and... is swarmed by space mite.

Then the team finds a crate full of spare parts, everyone sifts through it. We decide to take it along and Hurlshot grabs the crate... and gets a spike driven through one arm.

Next mission Labadal fails to hack security and three turrets pop out of the floor. Who do they shoot?

So we head into an abandoned mine. There is a container. In the past we have found valuable minerals and gems in similar ones. Hurlshot lifts the container and it starts beeping. Of course Hurlshot got the containers that had mining explosives. And of course Hurlshot triggered them. And not just once. Luckily the_dog_days managed to disarm them each time before Hurlshot could get blown up.

[the_dog_days]

I got your back, Hurlshot! Coincidentally, I do enjoy playing disablers.

[SonicMage117]

I'll be able to play some games tomorrow night...

 

Maybe I'll work on Batman Arkham Knight and some more of Rise Of The Tomb Raider. They both run perfectly and look so beautiful on my rig

 

Edit: Too bad Full Throttle Remastered didn't come out on Easter

Edited April 14, 2017 by SonicMage117

[Keyrock]

I'm having a blast with Yooka Laylee.  It really is the spiritual successor to Banjo Kazooie.  It mirrors that game in so many ways and it comes with all the positives (the charm, pleasant cartoony graphics, fun powers, etc.) and negatives (sometimes INFURIATING camera, grunting voice overs which you will either find adorable or annoying, etc.) that entails.  Basically, if you loved Banjo Kazooie and you think you would still like that kind of game some 15 years later, you will LOVE Yooka Laylee.  Otherwise, some of the 15 year old trappings might wear on you.  Luckily, this is exactly what I asked for and exactly what I received and I love it, 15 year old warts and all.

 

So, if you were on the fence about this game, know that this is NOT a new take, a new envisioning of the N64 platformer, modernized.  This IS a N64 platformer, through and through, just with a much nicer coat of paint.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Keyrock

[Katphood]

Same here. I'm enjoying the crap out of the game but I can't help but to think that this game got unfair reviews from the critics.

 

Hope Playtonic can make another game like this in the future.