What are you playing right now?

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

It's amazing how they managed to make the character progression feel better than 95% of rpg's despite not using any levels or experience points or even skills!

I'd argue it's not 'despite' but 'because'. I think majority of people enjoy feeling of progression, not gamification of accounting that RPGs tend to be - and STALKER nailed the feeling of actual progression without using any numbers that players would need to calculate through.

 

 

Stalker just nailed atmosphere and that feeling of randomness (thus possibility, danger, excitement) that comes from older, non streamlined games. The systems and all the numbers bull**** melted away into the background of actually enjoying the experience of playing the damn thing. I don't even recall the progression in the game, but I do remember sweating as dark came and all the monsters started showing up, with my ever declining amount of bullets and tall grass and burnt out wrecks obstructing the view.

 

It was like Dark Souls in that sense.

[Labadal]

I'm switching between Super mario Odyssey and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. On PSP, I am playing Persona 3 and on PC, it's mostly Faith of Danschant and World of Final Fantasy.

[Skazz]

I'm switching between Super mario Odyssey and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. On PSP, I am playing Persona 3 and on PC, it's mostly Faith of Danschant and World of Final Fantasy.

 

How do you find the PSP port of P3?

 

I have a weird relationship with it. I love the base PS2 game, but I've known at least one person to get turned away from the otherwise great game because of the concessions they had to make for PSP.

Edited May 1, 2018 by Skazz

[Epaminondas]

I can't get into the console games. I guess if I didn't have a computer, I might get more into it. I'm still plugging away at Kona. not very fast, but still having fun. Time is running out and I need to find something more substantial to chew on before the salt mine reclaims me.

[Gizmo]

 @Stalker progression: It's one of my favorite things about Stalker. Plays like an RPG, but doesn't have the stat silliness that all RPGs tend to have.

My impression was that it plays like a shooter; and that it expects you to live the life, instead of interpret how they would live; not RPG-like at all... rather it seemed to be a stream-of-consciousness simulation.

Edited May 1, 2018 by Gizmo

[Zoraptor]

I'd say that Stalker feels like an RPG because it's extraordinarily immersive and does excellent world building/ atmosphere which are usually found in RPGs and other story heavy genres- but if you leave feelings aside it is clearly a shooter by any objective criteria. Despite character advancement being a central facet of RPGs Stalker with its dozen or so weapons and 8ish armour types manages a feeling of character achievement and advancement that few RPGs attain with all their stats and levels even if it's still exactly the same Mr S wandering around, just with a Vintorez and stalker suit instead of a Makarov and paper maché suit.

 

I'm actually playing Mass Effect Andromeda at the moment- not far in, maybe a couple of hours and it's OK. The animations etc are fine so far, it's a bit Dragon Age Inquisition with lazars and fewer stats combined with the old ME staples of plink plink weapons and pervading cheesiness but that's more or less what I expected. So far the most annoying thing is the graphics giving a strong uncanny valley vibe, technically it's great and my theoretically underpowered 580 is coping with near 4k resolution well, but there's this rather odd feeling that everything looks... 'artificial' for want of a better term.

[213374U]

 

Felt like doing a new playthrough of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. I used to run it with Olmod but that wasn't updated to support the final patch (and it will just crash) so I stated looking into alternatives. I wanted something that fixes some issues, maybe updates the weapon models/graphics and possibly adds some removed stuff back in (like silencers for the AKs) but leaves the gameplay intact.

 

It seemd the Stalker Starter Pack was my ticket, but after starting the game on Master difficulty I immediately noticed the Bandits you meet in the first mission didn't have any shotguns... I am *very* sure they did in vanilla so I'm wondering whether it's the mod messing with enemy loadouts or just random. Guess I need to start over and if that doesn't work try it without the mod. There's nothing in there that claims it interferes with enamy loadouts but it's pretty common for mod authors (or Enhanced Edition authors...) to get carried away...

 

EDIT: typos

 

Strange. I also felt the need to replay Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl around the same time you did. I wonder what triggered it?

 

Anyhow, I am using the Stalker Complete mod. That's all I need, slightly better graphics and less bugs.

 

Also, I forgot how fantastic this game is. It's amazing how they managed to make the character progression feel better than 95% of rpg's despite not using any levels or experience points or even skills!

 

Heh. I've also been playing Stalker: Call of Chernobyl (yes, Call of Chernobyl) of late.

 

Technically, it... hasn't aged well. And yet it's still an excellent experience for much the same reasons Alien is still a great film.

 

I have high hopes for the new METRO.

Edited May 1, 2018 by 213374U

[Labadal]

 

I'm switching between Super mario Odyssey and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. On PSP, I am playing Persona 3 and on PC, it's mostly Faith of Danschant and World of Final Fantasy.

 

How do you find the PSP port of P3?

 

I have a weird relationship with it. I love the base PS2 game, but I've known at least one person to get turned away from the otherwise great game because of the concessions they had to make for PSP.

 

I have never played the PS2 version. I think the PSP version is very good and the reason I chose to play it over the PS2 version is that you have manual control over your entire party and some other additions. I'm playing as the girl instead of the boy, just to change things up. You don't explore the city as you do in the PS2 version. It's basically a cursor that you move around to go where you want. Being able to play both male and female, makes it more likely for me to replay the game. And the fact that I don't get screwed by companion AI were the tipping point.

 

"Persona 3 FES is the same as Persona 3, and it includes an extra epilogue section with the final part of the story and a large area to explore and battle in.

 

Persona Portable is the trimmed version of Persona 3 for the PlayStation Portable. It mainly has the same story as Persona 3, but it does not include the epilogue of Persona 3 FES, nor does it have characters acting out each scene. Instead, the 2D animation of each character is shown in front of a stationary background. You cannot control the main character either while traveling around town. To travel, you must select areas from a stationary screen. At the beginning of the game, you will be able to choose a female main character, The battle system has been altered a bit as well, allowing you to control all character in battle instead of just the main character, and Fusion Spells are now items instead of being available when you have two specific Personas available."

[Katphood]

Halo 2: Anniversary Edition.

 

Loving it! It's a full remake with all the bells and whistles and generally, it is a much more enjoyable experience compared to Halo: CE.

[Tale]

I finished God of War. It was fun.

 

As a complaint, it's way too sure of its own success and that it'll get sequels. This feels like Chapter 1 of a more interesting story.

[Katphood]

I finished God of War. It was fun.

 

As a complaint, it's way too sure of its own success and that it'll get sequels. This feels like Chapter 1 of a more interesting story.

How long did it take to beat the main story? Was it short?!

Edited May 2, 2018 by Katphood

[Tale]

I have no record of my time playing. I didn't Platinum the game. I'm comfortable believing it was in the range of 15-20 hours.

[wolfrider100]

I just finished The Technomancer. It's a enjoyable game with a pretty cool main story line, but man oh man

 

most of the side quests have you backtracking a lot through areas you had already visited. Game's combat

 

mechanics are ok, it took me a hour or two to really get use to them (even after I got use to the mechanics,

 

I still hate how combat works in this game). Over time I grew to love the companions. My two favorites are

 

Amelia Reacher and Niesha (I liked there two personal quests). The bickering between them is also funny.

Edited May 2, 2018 by wolfrider100

[Epaminondas]

I'm pretty far in Kona. My father-in-law ended up with pneumonia. At 87, that's bad news. I forced him to go to urgent care because he refused to go to the emergency room. Urgent care sent him by ambulance to the Emergency room. I've spent a good portion of my precious break going back and forth to where he lives to take care of him, so I haven't finished Kona, but I think I'm getting close. The finished product is actually pretty cool. Like a Long Dark that doesn't kill you with relentless alacrity and regularity.

[Katphood]

I want to progress the story in Yakuza 0 but the mini-games won't let me dammit!

 

I'm gonna buy every store in Kamarucho! 

[wolfrider100]

Just bought Mad Max on Origin. It includes all the DLCs, even the PS4 exclusive The Road

 

Warrior Pack. I been wanting to try this for a while, since I love post apocalyptic video games.

Edited May 4, 2018 by wolfrider100

[Epaminondas]

Finished Kona just right now. It shaped up pretty nicely. I played it while it was in development and I thought it was rough but good. Then I shelved it until after they finished it and I had a pretty good time. Not really hardcore, but that's just fine. The voice acting is great. The voice sounds familiar, but it was expressive, clever, and often very witty in a dry humor sort of way. Perfect for me. There wasn't a lot of combat and the tiny bit there was ended up being very easy, so no challenge there. It was mostly an exploration/puzzle game and since I was okay with the writing and the atmosphere was good I ended up being happy.

 

Oh, and the wife and I just finished layers of fear tonight. it wasn't really scary, but it was creepy. I know there are two other endings, but we got the grand artist one. I figure we could do things differently and get good husband one, but I doubt we ever get the third one where you just run through the game.

Edited May 4, 2018 by Epaminondas

[Mamoulian War]

I am still alternating between Starcrawlers and Torchlight. But now with small addition of Assetto Corsa Ultimate Edition on PS4.  After few hours in, I can say, that AC requires much more concentration to keep car on track, but on the other hand, when ever I do big mistake, and I am starting to lose control of the car, it is for me much easier to make a save, and do corrections to my driving to be able to stabilize the car before getting off the track...

I have done few car handling trainings on my current job, and I can without doubt say, that this game is closest to the real driving, and the handling training actually helps me in comparison to Project CARS 1, when I had troubles all the time, with car sliding to much after a mistake...

Edited May 4, 2018 by Mamoulian War

[Usuze]

I've been playing Hearthstone a lot lately.

[Epaminondas]

I have but three nights left before I go back to the salt mines. I guess I'm going to play some Long Dark tonight, but I could really use a fun first person shooter. Now that Usuze mentioned Hearthstone, I'll have to see what that is.

[melkathi]

It is not a fun first person shooter

[Keyrock]

Warframe is pretty freakin' great.  It's sort of like Destiny but with way more content and it's free.  I like that you can stealth a lot of the missions, which is fitting since you play a space ninja.

Edited May 5, 2018 by Keyrock

[Oner]

Played Monster Prom with friends. This is the craziest **** I've played in a good while. It plays almost exactly like The Yawhg (which is also an excellent game) but as far as we saw with less randomness.

[Epaminondas]

It is not a fun first person shooter

Yeah... I looked it up and that became apparent. I'm sure it's a fun game, but not what I'm looking for right now.

 

I took up my old Long Dark Wintermute game and they added stuff. This Hank's Hatch stuff is new at least. Luckily I'd already killed the mean ol' bear. I'm tempted to start over again, but I think I'll wait until the next break. I will likely not play any computer games between Monday and the end of August. I might replay something I've already played.

[Katphood]

Installed Risen last night, let's see how long this will keep me entertained.