Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 17th

Trackmania. It's always what I go to when I run out of things to play

Mostly waiting for Lies Of P to land in a day or two. I have spent more time with Starfield, but as I mentioned in a previous comment, I think I'm reaching the end of my time with that one.

I don't think it's 'bad', but I do think it's a severely compromised game that underwhelms more than it should for a game of it's budget and the team behind it. There's moments where you can see so much potential but it is always somewhat hidden by this mid 2000s design that I thought we'd moved past.

Final Fantasy IX Remaster

• I've never finished FF9 on PS1 (my optical drive died), then I got distracted playing FF9 remaster a few years earlier. Finally decided to stream the game with a guide
• The battle is slow, even with fast forward, the animation seems to be slower than FF8 or FF7
• The fast forward in this remaster is not implemented as good as FF8 remaster's.
  • It's only either 1x or 4x speed
  • If you started the fast forward and forgot to turn it off before a cutscene, then the cutscene will play at 4x without any way to reset the speed.
• Despite all that, I am enjoying the game, characters are likable. I'm currently at Disc 2, after the Clerya section

Resident Evil Remake

• Again, I'm following a guide to get unlimited rocket launcher. I really dislike that 3 hour time limit. Or maybe I just really dislike time limit in games.
• I'm not into survival horror, but I enjoy the shooting / action part of Resident Evil
• So far, not enjoying it, since I'm just kiting zombies, skipping cutscenes, etc. My aim is to get unlimited ammo, then finally play both Chris and Jill sections without the ammo, and in some ways, inventory constraints.

Playing:
Remnant 2, really fun!
Doorkickers 2, a new update came out with new missions I have to conquer!
Hell Let Loose got better again with the latest update, so I play that if I have the energy to shout orders into my mic (because no-one wants to be squad leader).
Sons of the Forest is coming along nicely.

Stopped playing:
Gave up on Starfield. What a mediocre janky game with generic story. Frustrating and time consuming menus. It's not massive at all. It's just big empty rooms behind loading screens. There has been like 5% technical development since Fallout 4. They didn't even bother to fix the mannequin NPC faces for their game "that has been in development for 12 years" or whatever.
I cannot fathom how some people swallow that stuff and goes "10/10 game of the century" and pay 80€ for it.
Sorry for rant.

Looking forward to:
Cyberpunk 2.0
The infantry combat overhaul for Squad.

Started playing RDR2 after playing almost all games from the top of my backlog. Folks kept telling me RDR2 would ruin other games for you, so I saved it for the last. I'm still in the first chapter and I like it a lot. I like how it's slow paced, feels more like a simulator so far. I'm also bit worried as folks told me you can miss certain side quests if you advance too fast, so I want to ignore all the main quest missions as much as possible. This caused my horse to die due to harsh winters right in the beginning coz I thought I should venture out a bit :p

I've also started playing Metro 2033, it's a slow start and the controls are a bit wonky, but seems like a simple linear game so far.

Starfield. I love it and I don’t care what anyone else thinks. Fallout 76 was a bad game, Starfield is amazing comparatively.

After more than thirty hours and hours of discussions with a friend who knows Pathfinder and stuff, I've finally beaten the first boss of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous!

My character finally created, I got through the intro cutscene thingle, threw a dart, saved, and am in bed waiting to become asleep 🤣

(The joke is that the character creation is so interesting, involved, and/or difficult that it counts as a boss fight just choosing a character class to start with 😅 Also yes it did actually according to Steam take me nearly forty hours to defeat said boss 😅)

Still playing Final Fantasy XVI since release.

Getting to the end of it and I've really loved it. The Eikon abilities have really flourished throughout the game starting as supplemental to combat to being a cornerstone of combat.

Other than that, the story has been great as well as the subplots. I can't express how happy I am with this game after the disaster of Final Fantasy XV and the all of the FFVII stuff.

My main game continues to be Overwatch.

I've also been playing some Diablo IV. I've been taking my time - there is a lot to enjoy in that game. I just teamed up with my brother to finish the last act of the main story.

Apart from my oxygen that is Factorio, I play Heretic's Fork. The game desperately needs a manual, but I'm enjoying it.

I've not really been playing anything this past week. I'm putting off a second playthrough of BG3 as I want to wait for at least one more major patch and some more mods to come out/get refined, but after seeing some of the fanservice for fans of the older games in Act 3 (both good and bad) I got the itching to play through BG2 again, including a full playthrough of Throne of Bhaal with Ascension installed this time (I rarely push through ToB after finishing BG2). I never did it before out of fear for the difficulty, but I see that the Tougher Battles module is optional in the rewritten 2.0+ version Ascension.

Naturally this was an opportunity to revamp my BG2 modlist, so the past week has been an exercise in frustration as I've been re-exploring the wonders of WeiDU and trying to figure out the correct install order of everything, which can be extremely finicky. Hopefully I'll get to start playing this week.

My wife really wanted me to play Lost Ark again with her, so I am playing that.

Also while at work I usually play The Binding of Isaac.

When holding my son's hands until he sleeps I play bloons TD6, as it only requires one hand.

And I also returned to League of legends

Still Snowrunner

Finished up my time with Starfield for now. If you'd told me a month ago that it would be the main story that would keep me playing, I wouldn't have believed you. The story was way better than I was expecting and far and away my favorite one in a Bethesda game. As for the rest, ehhh. There are a lot of steps back here, and I really don't like the visuals. Felt like my character was smoking inside her helmet or something. Having framerates regularly dip into the 40's even with DLSS and tons of other tweaks really didn't help.

I will say this: aside from some sounds with oddly harsh high frequencies (there's a mod for that), the audio team really nailed this one. The voice acting is phenomenal, and I'd love to hear this soundtrack performed live.

Feeling non-committal at the moment. Was considering replaying Disco Elysium, but really I'm just waiting for the new Cyberpunk content.

I've been replaying Cyberpunk 2077, in preparation for Phantom Liberty coming out shortly. The storytelling in this game is so damn good.

Been on that F-Zero 99 grind. Got myself up to A- rank, so I'm not doing too badly. :)

I was close to the end last week, but I've finally finished Pillars of Eternity. It only took 8 years. I'll not start with the expansions right away, but to do them I'll have to load a save before the final dungeon, which kinda sucks.

I'm also taking a break from Quake 2 currently, although not by choice. It's because of a bug halfway through the second mission pack, Ground Zero, where my game would crash consistently. Maybe restarting the level could help, but I'll just wait. An internet comment I read mentioned that the devs are aware, and it'll get fixed in a patch, hopefully that'll happen soon.

Next, I finished two more games, first Shadowrun Returns. It wasn't that good. I'm not a big fan of tactical turn-based RPGs, and this game didn't help. As for the story, it's like they got two completely separate scripts and stuck them together. After like two thirds or something, the game takes a sharp turn and goes completely off the rails. The first part was really clichéd and predictable, but I still enjoyed it, and I wish it could have ended there. The "class" I chose also sucked, I guess, a melee hacker (or Decker in this universe). The hacking is 90% useless in the game, and melee feels like it's just massively disadvantaged, compared to ranged attacks. The game is also a bit buggy at times and the UI can be really clunky. I don't think I'll play the other two games in this trilogy unless I get really into TRPGs in the future.

The final game I finished was Katana Zero, which was a bit mediocre, with some bright spots. It's an action side-scroller where you need to kill every enemy in a room, without getting hit, to move forward. Dying resets the current room, and you have to start from the beginning, à la Super Meat Boy. However, there was a bit too much randomness in enemy placement and movement, to really get that perfect run done. The story could be interesting, but I didn't like the way it was told at all, however I did like the dialog system. When talking to someone you get a timed response, which you can hit, while the other is still talking, interrupting them, or wait for them to finish and choose from a few options. I really liked that. The game also looks great and has very good music. It's pretty short, I clocked out after less than four hours, but you're supposed to play through it at least twice I guess, because of the story. I didn't care for the basic gameplay enough, so I'm fine with just my single run.

Still playing Elder Scrolls Online. It's my go-to these days. There's just do much to do in that game.

still playing starfield. and some backyard baseball sometimes when i get the urge. occasional fortnite with buddies

Since Blasphemous II came out, I decided to give the first game of the two a try, and I’m amazed. For me, this is as good as a hollow Knight in terms of the map size, exploration, combat, music, everything. It’s phenomenal. The odd art style put me off at first, but it was unfounded. The game is awesome. If you’re on the fence about it like I was, take this as your sign that it’s a good metroidvania. Your mileage may vary, but I don’t usually give annoying or tedious games the light of day.

I beat Kingdom Hearts 1 last week, so this week I'm doing Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories! I think I'm about halfway through now, just finishing floor 12 I think, but the battle's been rough on me to say the least. I think I'm gonna need to grind up some cards and levels today to get past it.

Arkam asylum. I decided I like when games have hidden collectibles everywhere and the title screen shows what percentage of the game you've completed.

Also the surge. Don't play long at a time because I keep dying and it's frustrating to face the same enemies again and again when going back.

Edit: and Darkside detective.

Starfield, Fae Farm, and Icarus

Tf2 and rimworld. I started playing tf2 very recently and I enjoyed heavy and medic. Then I played some 2fort and now I can't stop playing sniper

I got into Voices of the Void recently and am enjoying it. I love sims and the idea of a sim about looking for signals from alien life grabbed me.

Doing a rerun of the Mass Effect trilogy, and just started ME3. Mass Effect is my comfort game, I swear.

Still working on seasonal stuff for Diablo 4. I got all my world bosses done, now I'm just trying to level up for the rest of it. I got a weekly game plan for myself, so I think I might finish it before the season end on Oct 17.

In the meantime I've been replaying (again) 2015's Mad Max. I've had a lot of irl stuff going on that sucks and it's been very cathartic to play. Just drive around and punch mutherfuckers? Hell yeah.

Been thinking about picking up Gungrave G.O.R.E since it's on Xbox Game Pass. There's an anime that goes with it I guess? Nobody I've talked to know a lot about it, so I think that might be my next game to play just for the hell of it.

This week I played Euro Truck Simulator 2 after I don't know how long. I posted about it on my Mastodon server and there's a chance that this evening I'll play it multiplayer with three complete strangers.

Been playing brawlhalla with friends a lot, just started a new c-dda run aswell

I am close to finishing The Outer Worlds. The game has a somewhat mixed reception when it comes up in discussions online and I think it's mostly because the developer Obsidian made New Vegas and Outer Worlds apparently is the worse game. So, I never played New Vegas and therefore can't compare the two. I do enjoy my time with Outer Worlds very much!

• it's basically the same formula as Fallout 4 but in a humorous space setting with better gunplay. Or, alternatively Borderlands with a ton more talking and decisions and worse gunplay. In any case a lot of shooting and looting.
• different builds are possible but not as significant different as in Borderlands. But since it's not a massively big game it didn't matter that much to me. After a couple of changes I kinda kept investing mostly in my handgun, my companions and personality skills to pass more skillchecks.
• what I like: the stories the game tells! Be it the main quest line or quests for factions or your companions. All have a nice sense of humor to them without getting too silly. For example there is a dude in a wurst factory and you get sent there to end whatever he is doing there (hint: it's more than producing wurst from spacepigs). And there are a number of ways you can approach this: guns blazing, trying to sabotage the factory or sneak in and just kill the guy.
• also: great soundtrack and overall sound design! The jingle that plays when you level up is just great!
• also: while not a massive big game there are a lot of different places to go and explore. From abandoned settlements in some sort of desert to a big city where only rich people live and everything in between.
• meh: so many drinks, lotions and food items that give you different boosts. Problem is that there are so many different items it's hard to keep track which one does what. I abandoned pretty much all of them and only kept Adreno (restores energy).
• meh: fast travel can be annoying because most of the time you have to fast travel back to your ship and then from there select another planet/spacestation and then land your ship and then again fast travel to wherever you need to go to. So it's potentially three (not very long, though) loading screens if you need to go someplace different.
• decisions do matter in quests but the general direction of the story is set.

I say: if you like stuff like Fallout, Borderlands and generally combat heavy action rpgs, this game may be right up your alley. And since it's kinda old at this point it's also pretty cheap most of the time.

I finished the story mode for Mortal Kombat 1, and it's another fun NRS story mode, but this one might be their weakest. The opening takes a while to get going, and some of the dialogue can be overly stiff, plus Megan Fox's delivery sucks on every other line. Still, it does pick up, and it's got some ideas. Unfortunately, I'm now left grinding the Invasions mode that I'm not really enjoying so that I can unlock the last few kameo fighters, because 5 of them are still locked when you finish the story mode. I'm not sure yet if MK1 is going to be a regular in my rotation of games I compete in, but it's got a decent shot.

Once I've had my fill of that, it's back to Baldur's Gate 3, where I'm finally in Act 3. I've still yet to arrive in Baldur's Gate in the game called Baldur's Gate.

• Starfield on my Xbox Series S. I just love it. It's finally the perfect No Man's Sky. Kind of. With more story, even better graphics, a fantastic score and so on and so on. Just waiting for 60fps
• The Crew Motorfest Demo on my Xbox Series S. It's okay. Would be waaaay better without the Tearing problems. Waiting for patch. If they get rid of the Tearing problem I'll buy it.

Lies of P. So far so good on boss #3