The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion - 17-08-2023
The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion - 17-08-2023
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!
Please don’t forget to use the spoiler tag as soon as you start talking about a storyline.
I’m playing through portal 2 with a friend who only played the single player. I didn’t realise how many amazing maps are out there in the workshop, I’d highly recommend revisiting if you’re looking for a great coop game!
Returnal (PC) - Still playing the Tower of Sisyphus even though I beat the game. This is the most impressed I've been with a Playstation "exclusive" since the PS2, it's so good. I bet a lot of people give up on it pretty quick because of the difficulty, but I find it's less difficult than a Souls game once you get a handle on it.
Horizon Zero Dawn (PC) - I kinda want to get to the part where they explain the robot animals (Dr. Eggman?), but the half-assed combat and boring open world are making me not want to bother.
20XX (PC)- It's fun, but it's also giving me a new appreciation for how well-designed the Mega Man games were. You're not supposed to be hitting your head on the bottoms of platforms in games like this, lmao.
BG3 with my wife. As great as it was I'm already enjoying this a lot more than DoS2, I just enjoy DnD mechanics more and those shields felt suffocating on build options. When she doesn't feel like gaming, I've also been working on Disco Elysium, which has also been great. I'm not really sure how I wound up in this double whammy of games about WORDS. MANY WORDS.
Gave Baldur's Gate 3 a try, I don't think it's for me. I didn't realize before starting that I absolutely fucking hate that kind of RNG, the Mindflayer "aesthetic" (body horror á la HR Giger-on-some-less-friendly-hallucinogenics? Check. Eye scream? Check. ), the threat of having content locked behind "lol, fuck you, you got the wrong dice roll hours ago", and, under the hood, a bunch of spreadsheet-esque mechanics I don't know jack about, never having played DnD.
Shame, seems like a lot of fun if you're into it.
I save scum in this play through, but I dont intend to on the next one. Part of the magic is that the game adapts to your bad dice rolls. Just because you succeeded a roll doesn't mean it's the "good" option. It's just a different one.
And the eye horror stuff is really only in the intro (although I'm only 20 hours in so it may come up later)
If you want, the game is very susceptible to save scumming
In addition to save scumming to get better results as others have said, the body horror stuff goes away after the intro and you end up in much more normal forests/towns etc. I definitely understand the difficulty of the mechanics for someone new to DnD, it is pretty complex relative to what video games generally expose to the player, but it also is mostly good about explaining how stuff works with the tooltips.
I'm playing the latest, hottest crpg: divinity: original sin 2! I played the first years ago but had to kind of skog through it, tried playing the second one and just couldn't get into it. With bg3 out, I want to give it a other chance, otherwise I think I have to realize that crpgs aren't for me anymore.
Been playing Titanfall 2 for the past couple weeks. Love Frontier Defense.
Man, I haven't played Frontier Defense in ages. I really liked that mode but I felt like it needed some more gameplay time on foot before everyone gets their mechs. It felt like 10-90 split of on foot to mech time.
Didn’t continue anything at all I was playing last week! On a whim, I decided to give a little try to Dave the Diver. Like 12+ hours invested now (which is relatively large amount for me in a week…) and it’s all I’m playing. I love so much about the game. There are quirks, and things that could be improved (why on earth can’t I sort my diving pick ups while on a dive to pick the heaviest stuff to drop quickly??), but it feels very much like a “greater than the sum of its parts” game. Which is saying something, since there are a lot of parts in this game! There is enough tedious parts that are detracting enough that I doubt this will be on my top 10 of the year list, but it’s not far from it anyways. Definitely planning on finishing the story and definitely recommended!
Finally tried Just Cause 2 and it's super fun. The physics is hilarious.
Got it on gog a while ago not expecting much, put 70 hours into it and enjoyed every second! Pure chaos sandbox!
Baldurs Gate 3 with friends and Jagged Alliance 3 for single player time. Both are excellent roleplaying games with tactical combat.
I'm kind of bummed out on the hype behind BG3 though since player made characters get voices during creation but don't use say anything in dialogue, even main quest dialogue.
I recently discovered Graveyard Keeper. I'm ashamed that I put already a multitude of hours into it while I just bought it beginning of this week. It's like Stardew Valley but with a grim sense of humor. They even copied the fishing mechanics from SDV
It's a fun one. Not nearly as open-ended as SDV, but it has more of an actual story to tell so that's okay.
I recommend the DLC, they flesh out the story a lot.
El Garde
Just started but, man, i love that vibe of adventurer going to fight vigilante who is totally not my own brother by kicking asses of city guardians.
Playing through the Quake 2 Remaster with a nostalgic feeling. Now, having kids, I realize that I should not have had access to that at 13 yo. Distribution channels were different in 1997.
Damn right you shouldn't have had access to the Quake 2 remaster in 1997. Time travel violates the laws of established physics. :P
Baldur's Gate 3. And when I'm finally through it, I'm going to start Wrath of the Righteous. My sister's had it for a while and I only recently saw what it was about and I have to play it.
BG3 for me as well. I'm just a handful of hours into Act 2 after spending 20+hrs in Act 1. So far, I preferred the less dreary scenery of Act 1, but still enjoying the way the story is going. Can't express enough how blown away I've been by this game so far. I haven't been so hooked on an RPG since Witcher 3.
I play Baldur's Gate 3, too. But I don't know what I'm doing... I found out I lost Laezel somewhere.. I don't even remember where and thought it was just a tutorial... I'm too weak to fight Nere and cannot move on in the main quest, because "it's too dangerous" and I don't know where to go to get stronger. I'm wandering along the old areas and try to find out what to do.
I'm so strong, I haven't even had to fight Nere; both times I reached that part, motherfucker was already dead somehow. 🤷🏻♂️
I'm guessing you lost Lae'zel after the nautiloid crashed? You need to explore the map a little more. She isn't too far from where you'd find Gale; but apparently, something like 70% of players miss Gale, too. Which is crazy since they're like 10 feet from the crash site up north.
I ended up fighting Nere really early before finishing most of Act 1 and reloaded that fight just so many times before finally winning with some creative strategies.
Started Spider-Man: Miles Morales and am loving it so far. It's not as good as Spider-Man (in terms of making me invested in the storyline) but it's good.
(Spider-Man Miles Morales)
I love the way how Miles is kinda overpowered in this game too.
I'm playing through Dragon Quest 11 when I have time! I'm really enjoying the characters and the art! The story is... Okay. Nothing to write home about. The music was good, but then after having it repeat over and over and over and over it has kind of started making me grit my teeth. I also kind of wish the game was a little shorter? It feels extremely long, but I think that's a side-effect of me hearing the same songs over and over and the plot not really clicking with me as well as some other stories have.
Critiques aside, I really love Sylvando; I think he's the best character I've seen in a long time! So flamboyant, yet so caring and complex. And the art is really pretty and pleasant to look at at times.
I'm still gonna stick it out to the end, because I feel like I'm close to the end now anyway and maybe it'll leave on a really high note :)
After reading a book on Roman emperors I started playing Rome 2. Because of the problematic launch I never progressed far in the campaign. It seems the game was properly patched as I'm having a blast now.
I always enjoyed Rome TW, but it lacks some core game mechanics that Rome 2 does way better: political scheming, civil war, provinces, garrison, ... I also loathed the anachronistic representation of certain cultures in Rome TW.
In short: even if it's already 10 years old, I can't recommend the game enough, certainly when you are a romanophile!
With the Divide et Impera mod, I think it's the best historic TW game. Especially if you're in to Roman history and like realism.
Thx for the tip. What does this mod do?
Obligatory mention of Baldurs Gate 3. Only about 4 hours in and loving it. When I'm not playing that I'm playing Cyberpunk. That's also good fun, but obviously not on the same level.
I've been playing Hades again. I played it a while back, but only had like 30 attempts and 3 successes. The hype of the 64 heat run and the sequel coming soon got me back into it to hopefully finish the game.
A niche game named Stationeers and Baldur's Gate 3
Street Fighter 6 - Still playing everyday and this iteration of Street Fighter is so much fun. Pushing on through Diamond with Marisa now, really enjoying her playstyle and trying to get slightly better every day.
Baldurs Gate 3 - Finally pushed into Act 2, so far it has been a very interesting act, definitely having fun exploring both the area and the dialogue options, with some very interesting combat happening. This game is kinda dominating my play time, and I don't feel like I will have time to play much else for a while, which is nice. Really looking forward to a Dark Urge play though when I am finished with this first run.
My boyfriend and I are playing through Division 2 together. It's my first time playing through the story, his 3rd or 4th. We just got to world tier 4 and are gearing up to go to New York!
Baldurs gate 1. Catching up before starting the latest and greatest
HEYA, ITS ME, IMOEN!
I left her on the forest somewhere
Tried ghostrunner but ot was not for me. It was just not fun to play and felt way too difficult. Playing a bit of stardew valley and recently started tunic too.
Gave Underrail another go after a dropped attempt years ago. After I heard that looking up a build is the only way to really get into the game, I tried that and I get it now. Pretty fun and engaging! Other than that, Battlebit with the buddies. I want the L96 so bad
Against better judgement I just booted up Rust.
May your base survive you logging out.
I play new stuff all the time, but currently what I've been rotating through is
Chivalry 2: played the first one competitively and fortunately the second one is a lot of the same concept so many skills transfer easily. It's a fun game once it clicks.
Thronefall: a newer game revolving around base building and surviving waves of enemies while balancing economy and defense
Pseudoregalia: an incredibly fun platformer/metroidvania style game with really really tight and enjoyable movement controls.
For mobile, I've been stuck in Magic Survival, and Orna since my job requires a lot of walking so those pedometer games are worth my time now.
After playing Final Fantasy XVI and Trails into Reverie back to back, I needed a palate cleanser that wasn't a 60+ hour JRPG before Sea of Stars comes out. So I picked up The Entropy Centre, a first-person physics puzzler where you have a gun that can rewind time.
It borrows its aesthetics from Portal and its puzzle structure from The Talos Principle, and while it doesn't reach the heights of either, it's still pretty satisfying to work through. It's a bit on the easy side, probably because thinking in reverse requires you to hold a lot of stuff in your head at once so the developers were hesitant to put in anything too diabolical.
Remnant 2, Age of Empires 4 and GG Strive. Remnant 2 has me hooked, I really liked the first one but this game takes it to another level.
Nothing. Really want to play the outer worlds but with starfield just around the corner I don't want to burn out.
Diablo 4. My friends don't want to play the season though and I don't understand why.
I can’t stop playing this game. It’s just plain fun.
Factorio (Krastorio 2 + Space Exploration mods), and just started Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood which is blowing me away so far.
Baldur's gate 3 and by the looks of things I'll be playing it for a while... Good.
No, seriously, this game is fcking huge, 12 hours in and I'm still on act 1
Baldurs gate 3 like many people
Still playing BattleBit, but also started playing Nikke to pass the time
Salt 2 is a pretty good indie pirate game. You sail around a procedurally generated archipelago doing quests for various factions while building up your ship, and it's pretty relaxing. It's still in development so it's missing features like ship to ship combat, but it's the closest thing to a single player sea of thieves
I did a near 100% run on Bondee's Barnyard, still convinced 10/20 mode isn't doable... but I beat literally everything else
I’ve been playing brotato, and been enjoying it a lot recently, planning to dip my toes into mod content
I’ve also started playing borderlands GOTY on steam deck , it’s not that optimized with some stuttering but it’s playable And today I ordered a renewed rtx3070 to replace my GTX 1070 , supposed to be here in 3 weeks or 4 so wish me luck
Started Mafia: Definitive Edition.
"Stray Gods" is an incredibly beautiful game. I was turned off by the playstyle at first, but then I embraced it and got really invested in the characters and the story. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys Greek mythology and/or fantastic stories about interpersonal drama and enjoys games with tough dialogue choices.
The soundtrack also!!! It's a musical game and the songs are all SO BEAUTIFUL. I teared up a few times.
Stellar Blade (and Factorio, when my thumbs start to hurt ;) ).
Apart from the obvious fan service: After some adjustment I like that every combat (so far) feels threatening. You can't just button mash your way through (or at least I can't). But, man, it's hard to time those parries sometimes. The plot feels ... fine I guess? I'm not too far in though, I hope some of my big question marks get some explanation at some point.