Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 10th

I'm on Starfield this week. About 12 hours in.

Have to admit, I'm struggling to have fun, which I really didn't see coming. I have hundreds of hours in Fallout 4, probably over a thousand each in Fallout 3 and Skyrim, and I adore space settings, so this was my most anticipated game for years. Seemed like it would be a slam dunk.

Another huge surprise is that it might be the main story that's keeping me going. I've never come close to being this invested in one of Beth's stories.

I feel you. I just hit 20 hours and I probably didn't start to fully realize how to find different kinds of content deliberately until about hour 15 after I'd got some of the faction stuff started and explored enough planets to understand how to find certain side quests.

For the first while my natural instinct just had me exploring all of the cities and stations, just talking with people and picking up masses of side quests, then I hit a point where I started actually doing them, because I was burning myself out on walking and talking.

The non-scaling level of systems is interesting, figuring that out helped me to be able to do quests that I was leveled for and weren't super spongey, I figured out the structure of the random quest board quests so I could partake in FPS shooting, ship shooting, cargo running, or more narrative driven side quests depending on my mood.

Figuring out that the trade authority (only the manned shops, not the kiosks) is your stolen goods fence meant I could really start stealing in earnest, and the decrease in environmental items that are lootable, along with the decrease in lootable homes and apartments means stealing opportunities are harder to come by.

Even still, after being pretty cheap at level 20 I'm at about 120,000 credits, which seems close to enough to fully build my own ship, which I'm about to eagerly do in my next session. Once I've got a ship built I'll want to start and get into landing on less colonized planets and figure out the outposts and such, where I can pivot to hiring people from the taverns and getting into that whole side of the game.

I think because of the amount of things you could do, the amount of them that are basically impossible to do from the outset due to money (ship and outpost building), and the way the game doesn't guide or explain things well, it was really easy for me to create my own boring rut where I just walked and talked and ran away from tough enemies because I didn't realize I picked up a quest that was in or lead to a high level system.

For instance, I knew you could board ships, I had no idea that I needed the systems targeting skill to target engines to even do that at all, the skill description didn't mention it, and the early game mission that forces you to board doesn't require you to have the skill, you just board when the ship is supposed to "die". I was also initially upset random items couldn't be broken down into materials, but then I realized some materials can just be found as lootables, same for some craftable components.

All told, as I play more I'm coming around to it all more, but it'll probably take another ten or 20 hours before I fully understand all the systems and can make a judgment on if I like it more, less, or the same as Fallout 4, which I also loved.
- Yeah, the hope is that once I become familiar with what systems are available, what I should avoid, and what needs modding, I'll be able to settle into the same cozy game loop as I have with the previous games.
  
  What concerns me is I'm struggling with some of the core systems like bad companion AI (can't reposition them in combat anymore for some reason), the main quests being so unpolished that I'm not exactly looking to jump into the side content, and especially the nested prereqs in the crafting system.
Make sure to also give the Freestar Rangers and UC Vanguard mission lines a try; they are both long and excellent: FSC Rangers is a love-letter to Spaghetti Westerns, and Vanguards line is a mini-Starship Troopers.
I found it took a long time to really get rolling. On the other hand I'm 70 hours in now and keep finding more depth and things to do and mechanics I haven't even explored, it sometimes is a bit daunting how much there is to do in it.

Playing starfield, having fun with it, it's basically like an extended fallout 4 with spaceships. I just wish I had more time to play

Nooooo you’re not allowed to enjoy starfield!

I'm still going with Baldur's Gate 3, and it continues to impress me at every turn. Steam says I've played for 43.5 hours now, and I'll bet I still have at least 20 hours ahead of me on this first playthrough. After primarily playing fighting games for the past few years, this game has reminded me of what I love so much in RPGs and created a backlog of games for me to play through in the next couple of years to follow it up, especially since a tabletop group of 5e probably doesn't fit into my life right now.

Playing Sea of Stars. It's so fun and beautiful to look at

Also been enjoying Sea of Stars, it's like the modern love child of Super Mario RPG, Lunar and Chrono Trigger
I’m really excited to sit down and play sea of stars. Probably will be a solid three or four months though. Sorry chain of echoes, I don’t think I’m going to be able to fit you in any time soon.

Command and Conquer 3. I'm not very familiar with the series but I'm enjoying it, at least now that I figured out why the campaign was so hard. Apparently they patched the game balance after release with multi-player in mind and didn't consider the consequences for single-player. So after a small mod to restore the original resource gather rates, the game is a great time.

Wow, that is a name I have not heard in a very long time. I got suckered into buying it on 360. It played OK on a console all things considered.

It was fine, didn’t love it. What are your impressions so far?
- As a super casual player, I'm mostly enjoying the spectacle of the campaign. Coming from rts like age of Empires 2, which has a sometimes pretty strict population cap in it's missions (and also medieval technology), being able to build up an unlimited army of giant tanks and mecha is pretty fun. Maybe that loses its novelty at some point. Speaking of novelties, the fmv cutscenes are an interesting choice. I realize they were a fad when the original game was released, but I respect that they decided to preserve that portion of the series' identity.
  
  The use of only one resource is strange. It feels like there are only a couple places on the map (the tiberium fields) that actually matter, and the rest is just empty space. I haven't seen what the multi-player maps look like, maybe they add neutral buildings or something to give the players something to fight over. They've been a couple of those so far.
  
  My opinion is also heavily influenced by the fact that the game is from the time before all the modern bullshit with microtransactions and stuff. Like, I paid for a game, and I received an actually complete game that doesn't try to sell me a bunch more stuff. Wild. Having just moved on from Immortals: Fenyx Rising, which really suffered from being a Ubisoft game despite its charming setting and characters really drives that point home.

I’ve picked Dead Cells back up on Steam Deck, playing on custom mode to always get the gear I want. Not the “proper” way to play, but it’s just fun to spend a bit flying through biomes killing things for a while. It’s why I love games that build in all sorts of extra features like this; I get to enjoy the game on my terms.

Dave the Diver! Every bit of the journey is fun, the game broadens in scope bit by bit, you also upgrade in increments, and the story is cute and interesting.

I've put a few hours in and I agree, it's just a fun little game that slowly pushes you bit by bit into slightly more challenging stuff. I really like how well the game meshes the diving and sushi restaurant aspects, too. (Plus, I'm a scuba diver -- still pretty new to it -- and I'm a bit on the larger side, so it's a nice bit of representation.)

I'm on my second playthrough of Baldurs Gate 3, this time with a Dragonborn Fighter ( Half Elf Gloomstalker was my first ). I'm still not sick of the game even if I already have 100 hours in it.

Also picked up Remnant From the Ashes to play together with my SO. So far it's a fun game even if the story is still very confusing and we had trouble joining each others session. Had to set the session to public, Friends Only didn't work. Thankfully it is possible to change it back to Friends Only afterwards.

I'm trying Starfield again.

New playthrough, got some .ini tweaks which seem to help performance quite a bit so far, not screwing myself with traits and character background like I did initially, and making gameplay priorities.

I was too overwhelmed the first time with all the different mechanics and forgot to do what I do with most Bethesda games: focus on a few select areas and ignore the rest, so I'm not going to bother with a lot of the mechanics I'm not interested in.

If they draw me in at some other point, might give it a shot. Otherwise, unimportant to me.

Other than that, I've been on a FIFA kick for a while. Still messing around with that. I really wish women's football was more popular. I'd honestly pay for a game specifically focusing on it and ignoring the men's side of things.

Look into SP Football Life for even more/deeper/better soccer goodness on PC.

Finished Mass Effect 2 and loved it! I want to start ME3 but I think I should give it a bit more time.

Since everyone is talking about Starfield, I decided to play a bit... Of No Man's Sky. And I'm completely lost since I hadn't played in almost a year maybe? I don't remember anything, what I was doing or even how to play. But since I started I already started one of the quests related to the settlement and I'm doing it now. It's fun, I missed this game.

Finished Mass Effect 2 and loved it

Did you play it on PC or console? If it's the latter then how were the controls? I'm planning on getting it on console, but I suck at playing FPSes with a controller.
- Mass Effect is a very slow, very forgiving combat experience unless you’re playing on insane. Pretty much everything auto locks on or has some sort of AOE component. You could pretty much play the game rarely firing a gun if you really are worried about it. But even then it’s not bad at all.
- Console, and it was perfectly fine. It's in third person, which helps, and there are powers which don't need to be aimed in real time. I never felt like using a mouse and keyboard would make me significantly better.

Still on a space game kick. Finished up Freelancer and started playing No Man's Sky's recent "Voyagers" expedition. It's still got over a month left so I highly recommend checking it out if you haven't played the game in a while. Just to see whats new; It's come a long way.

And picked up Hardspace: Shipbreaker on sale for when NMS starts getting monotonous.

Ooh, was this your first time with Freelancer? It's amazing that it's twenty years later and it might still be the benchmark for non-HOTAS space sims.

I enjoyed Shipbreaker much more than I thought I would. Not typically my style of gameplay, but the setting is fantastic.
- No, I played it at release and was HOOKED. I remember clearing a 3 day holiday weekend so I could play through the whole thing (for the second or third time) in one sitting.
  
  I had somehow missed that a HD remaster was released a couple years ago, so I gave it a shot and got sucked right back in. Still a fantastic game, even if the cut scenes and voice acting are a little dated.
  
  For anyone who hasn't played it, it's abandonware now.
  
  Game: https://archive.org/details/Freelancer_201807
  
  HD mod: https://www.moddb.com/mods/freelancer-hd-edition/downloads/freelancer-hd-edition-v06

I’m taking my time with my first play through of Baldur’s Gate 3. I’m enjoying it a lot, the way it interweaves characters you’ve met before into the narrative later one is really good.

I am about to finish Starfield. I did not enjoy my time with it. Luckily, I played it on gamepass, so very little monetary value was lost.

Might revisit once creation kit is up. That was the only way Fallout 4 was enjoyable for me.

I will head back to finishing my bg3 evil play through, filling the gaps with Darktide.

What's sad is that Starfield was expected to be the next big RPG. The next Skyrim but in space.

Instead, most people are likely going to come out of their experience with the game with a "meh" opinion about it. It's solidly middle-tier.

If there's anything to be said, the visuals are incredible, but everything else is a retread of mechanics pulled from other games (most notably, half the ideas are taken from No Man's Sky).

Got in late in last week's thread so reposting. Got Gotham Knights on sale this week. It's fine. All the technical issues seem to be gone. Enjoyable enough for $15aud. Also having a go at SYNCED, I like the aesthetic and could be a fun one for quick sessions. Doesn't run very well though, getting pretty frequent frame rate dips even on low and on low it looks pretty rough.

I finished Quake 2: The Reckoning, the first expansion pack for Quake 2, and started with the second one, Ground Zero. Just like the expansions for Quake 1, it's pretty much just more Quake. A few new or changed enemies, some new weapons, and I was blasting my way through the Strogg. Just like the base game, I played on Hard, and it's not really that difficult, much easier than Quake 1. The biggest difference is that you get tons of ammo in Quake 2, so you're never completely running out.

In Pillars of Eternity, I'm almost done with the second Act, so hopefully I can finish the game in the next couple of days. I don't think I'll immediately go into the White March expansion. I got about 100h combined with this and Baldurs Gate 1, these last few weeks, so I want a break from RTwP games. Like I mentioned last week, everything feels much smoother here than Baldurs Gate was, so I'm enjoying it a lot more. The AI pathing is still complete trash though.

Was anything ever done to mod in controller support to Pillars of Eternity from the console versions? I'm building a list of RPGs I'd like to play after BG3. Also, I'm pretty sure the game uses its own roleplaying setting and rules, but is it as complicated as 2e from those old Infinity engine games?
- I'm probably not the right person to ask these things.
  
  The game doesn't have official controller support, according to the Steam Store page, so you'd have to map controller buttons to KBM. There's a guide on Steam, so I guess you can play it that way, but I don't know how good it is.
  
  As for the rules, I've only barely scratched the surface for anything D&D related, so I can't really know or compare. To me, it's complicated, but it offers more information about everything. Keywords in tooltips are highlighted, so you can either click or mouse over, for further explanation about something. There's a log, that can show rolls, but I've barely used it. RTwP with often 10+ characters in a fight, there is just so much spam. The basics for 5e from BG3 felt extremely easy to understand, even for me. Just like BGEE, I'm going through PoE basically higher number better (ignoring that THAC0 stuff in BGEE), and it's working, although with lots of save scumming.

Palia. I saw a reference to this multiplayer online game on a news site. I'm an older player and enjoy the calm, combat-free experience. There's a lot of grinding, though. On a different note, has anyone who is playing Starfield also played Space Engineers or Empyrion Galactic Survival? I've played both and wonder how it compares to them.

Almost finished BG3 (at almost 100 hours on this playthrough), then planning to start Starfield!

Undead Nightmare on PC emulated with Xenia. Had just finished the original Red Dead Redemption using the same. Finally went for it when Rockstar made it obvious there wasn't going to be a PC remaster (and I upgraded my PC so I could play it at non potato fps since emulating is pretty intense). Had just started Cyberpunk 2077 but had stopped as I didn't want to get too far along since the new expansion was going to add/change a lot.

Anyway it was awesome to finally play RDR. Always wanted to but never had a console (nor did I want one) to play it on. Undead Nightmare looks to be good fun too though I'm maybe just an hour into it. Just killing time til Cyberpunk expansion drops.

The Legends of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Brotato

I'm deep in Earth Defense Force 5. It's way more fun than it has any right to be. There's no way I'm going to finish all the content. There is a ludicrous amount, over a hundred stages in a minimum of three difficulties with four characters who all have health and equipment that can be gathered and upgraded. It's hard to make it sound fun, because it's really just using crazy guns to shoot giant bugs and aliens and shit. It's very simple, but the formula is so good. Flying around like a maniac as a Wing Glider feels so bad ass. I gotta figure out how to talk someone into playing it with me >_>

Earth Defense Force is the shit. It's not way more fun than it has any right to be, it's exactly as fun as shooting giant alien insects as an overly patriotic earth sci Fi military SHOULD be.

I think if you show the gameplay to somebody and then the addicting loot system that they'd be down, unless they just don't like the chaotic shooter-ness. But yeah, those games are fucking great

Currently nothing. Finished Metro 2033 Redux yesterday. Most likely will read witcher the last wish some more today and maybe this week will start with metro last light or stalker 1

Playing Starfield, very fun so far but man it is demanding on my graphics card, barely holding 30 fps.

Also playing project zomboid with friends making our way to louisville.

Wow hardcore has consumed my life. HARDCORE HYPE HARDCORE HYPE

I picked up Starfield on Friday. I'm not very far into it after 12hrs. Been doing side quests and such around New Atlantis and exploring. So far, it's fun enough. This is the first Bethesda game I've played since Fallout 3 (which I didn't finish). So I've kinda come into this mostly blind, which I think is a good thing. It reminds me a bit of Deus Ex: HR/MD, probably because of all sidequest and explo that I'm doing.

Also restarted Triangle Strategy last week or so, after putting it down for a year or two. Had it for the Switch, but then picked it up for the Steam Deck. Been taking my time with that as well.

In FFXIV, I'm in the post-Shadowbringers DLC content. I've taken a bit of a break from the MSQ to get the Nier-themed alliance raids, along with the "Eden" full-party raids. I've so far only opened two of the three Nier alliance raids, and god are they difficult. But that difficulty means they're tons of fun. I think I've got the first one down pretty well, though I've yet to complete it without dying at least twice due to not paying attention to boss telegraphs. The second one is gonna take me a bit more to get through without dying left and right. Prioritizing these over the "Eden" full-party raids at the moment. Did get my MCH to 90 during all the raiding, which means I now my second Lvl 90 class, the first being RDM. Think I might try a healer class next, just not sure which one.

My first leveled Tank was Gunbreaker, my first leveled DPS was Mechanist and I am myself now working on Sage to fill out my "shoot guns at it to solve your problem" Trifecta.
In FFXIV, I’m in the post-Shadowbringers DLC content. I’ve taken a bit of a break from the MSQ to get the Nier-themed alliance raids

Are you me? I'm just a bit into the post-ShB patches, and I just finished unlocking all three Nier raids. They're really fun (although I agree: challenging). If you happen to be on Crystal DC and want to party up for some raids or something, lmk!

Think I might try a healer class next, just not sure which one

As someone who is very much a non-healer main, I quite like Sage. My first healer to 90 was actually Scholar, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was really into Summoner for a while: when I'm going to heal I usually hop on Sage.

Started Thymesia. Feels a bit less polished than other Soulslikes but still enjoyable.

Still trying to get out of Gold in Street Fighter 6, wrapping up Pikmin 4 100%, and going through the MegaMan Zero Collection (I'm on Zero 2)

Just playing the payday 3 beta this weekend, otherwise I'm playing runescape

I've been playing Darkest Dungeon. I just reinstalled Death Stranding to test an AAA Windows title on Linux and it works so I think I'll start that up. I feel ready for a walking simulator replay.

I'm eyeing Starfield as well, might see if I can get that running.

I was super addicted to Darkest Dungeon whenever I first got it. I never ended up finishing it, but I loved the art style and the community mods that are out there.

Still playing through Remnant 2; trying to get all non-HC items on my original character, as well as work on an apocalypse clear.

Otherwise, does rewriting bash/powershell scripts count as gaming?

Was playing Wayfinder, but they broke most of the game's farms in an attempt to fix a "bug" that was allowing people to actually level up in a reasonable amount of time.

Back to NMS for the expedition. Starfield who?

Permanently Deleted

All starfield, all the time. Been extremely enjoyable, can't wait to do a modded new game plus.

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood! It's a really good visual-novel-style game, but with the added element that you craft your own tarot-style divination deck and then draw cards from it during some conversations, and which cards you draw influence what kinds of readings you can give for people. It is established early on that since you were a kid your readings have never been wrong, and fittingly the game warns you early and repeatedly that your answers will affect your fate, dramatically. Well, no kidding! When I was playing yesterday I had a choice that I'd made hours earlier come back and bite me in the ass, hard. Almost made me want to quit and start over, but I've decided to see this play-through through and if by the end I still feel like I need to fix my mistakes I'll maybe play it a second time.

tl;dr if you like beautiful pixel art, enigmatic beings from outside of space and time, witches, tarot, and/or choices that actually matter in your games, do give this one a go! I'm not done with it yet but I'd already love to chat with someone else who's played it!

Just beat the campaign for 2077 for the first time on Thursday. Been playing starfield for 2-3 min at a time hoping it won't keep stuttering to a complete halt, but it does every time. But no matter my buddy sold me his old components after his most recent upgrade. So while it won't hit the recommended specs it should cross the minimum and hopefully no more freezing! In the meantime bdl3, 2point hospital, battletech.

Have been glued to BG3 for quite a bit now. I am thinking about booting up the old Portal games again, just as a small break.

Baldur’s Gate has held a month-long vice grip on me that will finally come to a close in idk 30-40 more hours when I finish act 3 ololololol

Started playing Lost Judgment, interspersed with Baldur's Gate 3 whenever I can play with my friend.

Death Stranding on steam deck, the version I got for free on epic

How do you play the Epic version on Steam?
- You can side load a program called Heroic Game Launcher that will automatically download from other stores and apply the best known version of Proton to it. It's not as good as proper Steam support, but it will often get the job done.
- with heroic launcher, it handles everything for you

It's a few years old, but I've been working on getting 100% achievements in Conarium over the weekend. I'm always a sucker for a Lovecraftian game, and it's one of the more visually interesting walking sims that I've played. I only have two achievements left, so I'm hoping I can clear them either today or tomorrow. I need more disk space for other games lmao

I started playing The Ezio Trilogy. Finished AC2 and Brotherhood back in the day, but never Revelations. The last AC game I played was (a bit of) AC3, but dropped it and never played an AC game ever again.

Mass Effect Andromeda! I just played through the ‘Legendary Edition’ of the trilogy, and despite what I’d heard about Andromeda, I couldn’t resist it at under $4 at GameStop.

…and I’m actually enjoying it a lot!

I wonder if it might actually get better reviews if it were released today. We’re more used to open worlds, and it’s less expected that you’d try to finish every little quest line you are presented with (‘Oh, don’t do that - that’s just for people who really like collecting things!’), and more expected that you’d jump around between places and not ‘complete’ one area before going on to another.

I’m not really seeing the problem with facial animations that some reviewers complain very loudly about - and some people online say rendered the game ‘unplayable’. Maybe I’m just not attuned to see it? Or maybe they updated it after release?

They did update it after release, but having not played it myself, I got the sense that it was never fully fixed.

Surprising lack of Armored Core 6 in here. Has everyone just beaten it already, or did it get overshadowed by Baldur's Gate and Starfield.

Just finished first playthrough last night, and maybe halfway through my second now.

There are just too many good games this year. Some of them won't make the cut when we've only got so much time and several of the best games of the year each take 100 hours to finish. Armored Core isn't making the cut for me this year.

Replaying RE2 remake while waiting for Re4r DLC. Surprised to find a new mode there that I don't have any memory of, it was added later I guess. Problem with being a patient gamer is that mod support stops and the game is updated and breaks it.

I'm playing starfield way too much. Every now and then I get a break to continue my Minecraft project with the kids. The internet keeps telling me I'm not supposed to be having fun with starfield but it's just not working, I'm really excited about the new capital ship I'm working on now.

Started Noita again. Got to the Mushrooms but got thrashed by a Pikkuturso. Good times.

NEO: The World Ends With You
- I've only played TWEWY Final Remix on Switch recently. I find the control frustrating. Docked, it's barely playable with joycon motion control, while undocked, it's tiring, and my finger keeps obstructing the screen. The game also keeps interrupting you, very often when you moved between screens, and sometimes just halfway running, someone will just stop what you're doing halfway for conversation that's not that essential.
- Now, this sequel has improved the gameplay part a lot. It still has problem with interruptions. But at least with proper controller support, this game is way better than its predecessor.
Immortality
- This is very slow, not sure if I will eventually enjoy a 10 hour FMV mainly consists of clips not in proper order. Also, I prefer Her Story's keyword search than this, because now I need to manually scrub the clips to the point of interests. So far I'm not enjoying the story as much, mainly because it's about acting for now.
- spoiler
  
  I know there's some supernatural stuff in it
- I can't help but fantasize, what if the setting is sci-fi mystery, you scrub thru a number of CCTV, interviews, interrogations videos, about some weird alien / sci-fi murder. So far Immortality feels like a slog.

I just got into Factorio, and I'm lucky I have other stuff going on in my life, because it's such a big rabbit hole I don't think I'd come out! I never played it or even knew what the game was about, but the announcement last week about the space expansion got me to download the demo.

Fae Farm. It is super cozy. Basically a 3D Stardew Valley. Definitely not as polished as Stardew but I am enjoying it quite a bit.

I am waiting until I upgrade my graphics card and get a TV (or projector) for my basement before I play Starfield. And I am waiting to play BG3 with my wife. Super excited for both of them.

Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 10th

NEO: The World Ends With You

Immortality