What games have you been playing lately?

Glebee · 20-03-2016 12:02PM

Been searching for a while for some game to fill the void that was The Witcher 3 and its DLC with no success but I think ive found it. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, only just started but its is very good indeed. As usual with MGS solid I have no idea whats happening but still game play is excellent.

degrassinoel · 20-03-2016 08:27PM

XCOM2 & the division

22-03-2016 10:50AM

Playing through Spec-Ops: The Line after hearing so much about it for so long. It's combat is dire; think Mass Effect without the RPG elements. Covered based combat has always been terrible imo. It offers no challenge. You get shot for a bit, you hide for a bit and then continue to play whack-a-mole with the enemies. Repeat until you reach the next area with waist high walls. It's storyline keeps it interesting.

According to Williams, they hoped that players would start the game with relatively low expectations or that they would consider the game as another typical heroic war shooter, then by seeing the transformation of these characters, they would be shocked by the game's narrative and be "engulfed by the darkness".

Pretty much sums it up. The game is a pile of ****e at the start on purpose apparently. Tiresome. I kept with it as there is allegedly some moment which sets this game apart from the rest. It does deliver. The main character pretty much loses his mind and its very effective.

Korvanica · 22-03-2016 12:06PM

Playing some Paragon over the last few days. Very much alpha, assets etc need work. But its a fun game. Look forward to see what becomes of it Hope its not going to be another Dawngate

22-03-2016 04:24PM

I played about half of ME1 and ME2. Neither could hold my attention til the end. The combat definitely had a big part in that. The same "whack-a-mole" strategy can be employed throughout. I think I have a fundamental issue with cover-based shooters. They bore me to tears.

Gbear · 22-03-2016 08:53PM

Deleted User wrote: »

I played about half of ME1 and ME2. Neither could hold my attention til the end. The combat definitely had a big part in that. The same "whack-a-mole" strategy can be employed throughout. I think I have a fundamental issue with cover-based shooters. They bore me to tears.

I think something a lot of people forget in the heat of the moment (and also in MP, because the mechanic doesn't exist there) is that the game is a tactical shooter.

Particularly with the skill-based classes and with zealous use of the tactical pause you don't have to cower behind boxes all the time lobbing bullets and spells out wildly.

The Vanguard is the best example, where you only need to briefly take cover between cooldowns of Biotic Charge, but particularly with a few upgrades to make you less squishy and more unlocked powers, you can go fairly gung ho with Engineer, Sentinel and Adept as well.

It's hard to get out of the habit though, and the game basically punishes you for doing it (or at any rate, you die a lot before you discover your rhythm) but if you make the effort to play the game more aggressively it's a lot more rewarding.

Yakult · 23-03-2016 02:08PM

Started playing Outlast recently, in the dark and with surround sound.

Possibly the only thing to scare the **** out of me. Hate to love it!

Links234 · 23-03-2016 07:24PM

So I'm giving Quantum Conundrum a go, picked it up in the Square Enix Easter mystery box. I hadn't even heard of it before, and my first thoughts were "Ooooh, John DeLancie!"

It's very Portal-lite, then I read up the wiki article and found it was designed by Kim Swift who worked on Portal.

chrislad · 23-03-2016 08:09PM

I just finishing the Witcher 3, in as much as you can really. I've done most of the quests, bar the Gwent ones (which I just don't have an interest in), and I'll probably pick up the season pass tomorrow. Fantastic game. Really involving with a great story, and characters.

Links234 · 23-03-2016 08:51PM

chrislad wrote: »

bar the Gwent ones (which I just don't have an interest in)

What? :eek: Best thing about the game!

You should be on a pyre in Novigrad for such heresy! :pac:

Glebee · 23-03-2016 09:27PM

chrislad wrote: »

I just finishing the Witcher 3, in as much as you can really. I've done most of the quests, bar the Gwent ones (which I just don't have an interest in), and I'll probably pick up the season pass tomorrow. Fantastic game. Really involving with a great story, and characters.

I skipped all the Gwent stuff as well:p

chrislad · 24-03-2016 12:24AM

Links234 wrote: »

What? :eek: Best thing about the game!

You should be on a pyre in Novigrad for such heresy! :pac:

I have enough of card games with Hearthstone. There was more than enough content to keep me enthralled without it. I'm just a wandering witcher now, finished the main story just wandering the map, finding new places and killing monsters

Digital Solitude · 24-03-2016 05:57PM

Dedends on yourself I guess, I wasn't mad about the game as a whole, barely reached Novigrad. But I'd say over half the time I've been playing has been in Gwent

Links234 · 25-03-2016 08:59PM

Just blasting away at Darkest Dungeon lately. One Necromancer Lord has been taken care of!

TetraxShard · 26-03-2016 02:27AM

A lot of Arkham games for a start. I finished Origins last night and really enjoyed it. Nice little game with some great boss fights, probably the best in the series outside of the Mr. Freeze fight in City. I moved on to Knight today, hoping for some improvements since launch. Even though I moved the game to an SSD and locked it to 30, performance is....barely adequate. The game itself is alright. I've been playing four hours and only seen one supervillain, it feels more like a dreary installment of Splinter Cell than Batman Simulator 2015, which was the draw of the earlier entries for me. Still though, considering I got both for free (Knight with my 970, Origins as part of the compensation package for Knight) I've got plenty of entertainment for no money. Oh, and the Batmobile's hot garbage. The shopping trolleys at Aldi handle better. I will finish Knight, then all I will have left is Blackgate. Then, no more DC games, at least until Injustice II (or Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe II: Dawn of Johnny Cage, whatever you're having yourself Warner).

As WrestleMania Week is next week, been dipping into WWE 2K16. The port is a lot better than last year, runs absolutely fine this time. Mostly playing the 2K Showcase mode, focusing on the career of Stone Cold Steve Austin, and the MyCareer mode. MyCareer's pretty fun, it feels like a wrestling RPG in many ways, sort of how Tiger Woods PGA Golf career mode feels like a golf RPG. You make your dude, have a match, cut a promo with Telltale-esque dialogue choices afterward and then level up your dude for more matches. I'm chasing the NXT Championship at the moment, hoping for a title shot soon.

I picked up Rise of the Tomb Raider again, having been stuck on a puzzle since shortly after launch. Turns out I solved it in the wrong order, I had done the second part while walking past the first part. Game is absolutely stunning from a graphics perspective. The PureHair tech, ugh, so good. Gameplay, it feels more bloated than the last one. There's a lot of feature creep. "We have to have more guns! And a crafting system! And more collectibles! Did I mention the crafting system?" I do enjoy the Challenge Tombs, but it's good they're optional for players who can't be bothered. It's a nice feeling when you solve one though.

I got a second screen this week, which can rotate, so I've been playing Pinball Arcade vertically on that and it's glorious. I loved playing it on tablet but it was hard to hold after awhile. Playing with the DX11 bells and whistles is fantastic. Rebuying the tables sucks, but I had Kickstarter codes from the licensed tables so I had a few, plus I bought Season 1 and 2 when they were on sale. I tried the Pinball FX2 tables from the Humble a few weeks back. I love the licenses they have for that game, but the physics are wayyyy off. They feel too bouncy, and video gamey, for want of better terms. Plus, I like playing on the tables from Pinball Arcade since they physically existed at one point. Is it possible to feel nostalgia for things you never actually had as a child? Because I get that from this game.

Grinding gold in Hearthstone for the upcoming Whispers of the Old Gods expansion, playing silly concede decks to make the games less tedious. I can't wait for Standard mode. The meta won't fundamentally change as aggro is naturally superior when it comes to a ladder, 1vs1 1-game format. You can play more games, in less time, to do quests faster and get your 10 gold for every three wins even faster.

And I'm losing nights to Undertale, which is fantastic, but the less said on that one the better. It really is better to go into that one completely blind. In short, I'm transfixed. The music in particular is great, so evocative for chiptune stuff. I've been humming the first boss' theme all day.

Glebee · 26-03-2016 11:59AM

Picked up Minecraft for the young lad last week. Never really understood the hype about it but after playing a bit i must say its an addictive game.

Links234 · 26-03-2016 03:25PM

Been quite enjoying Quantum Conundrum, very nice game to play on a lazy Saturday morning, and quite a pleasant surprise from the Square Enix mystery box. To think I was initially going to give it away.

Azza · 28-03-2016 02:00PM

You ever try the mini game modes in the older Resident Evil games Rope?

Links234 · 28-03-2016 11:05PM

Doing the high stakes gwent tournament in Witcher 3 atm.

Robert ninja · 30-03-2016 05:53AM

Recently been trying out Insurgency. So damn fun. I wish I had given it a proper shot earlier. Missions are really easy to jump into yet I can tell there's a lot of potential strategy. Most people use mics and the mic quality is really clear and immersive; people actually sound like they're on military radios when far away and it changes to positional audio when they're nearby, even with echo effects on the voices when were in a large hallways.

Gunplay is really responsive and just feels awesome.

ED E · 31-03-2016 07:59PM

Robert ninja wrote: »

Recently been trying out Insurgency. So damn fun. I wish I had given it a proper shot earlier. Missions are really easy to jump into yet I can tell there's a lot of potential strategy. Most people use mics and the mic quality is really clear and immersive; people actually sound like they're on military radios when far away and it changes to positional audio when they're nearby, even with echo effects on the voices when were in a large hallways.

Gunplay is really responsive and just feels awesome.

I played it like 4-5(?)yrs ago when it was only a mod, janky graphics but awesome game. Remember countless hours trying to fight up that mine entrance tunnel.

Must give the standalone game a real shot (own it but only 5 mins on the clock).

Links234 · 31-03-2016 08:00PM

Fired up Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, been meaning to play this for ages, but it has been sitting in the backlog for a while. Fancied something I could play through over the space of a weekend, and it was meant to be quite short. And sometimes, you just gotta kill loads of nazis.

Also had played a little Infested Planet again, which is SUCH an amazing game.

Azza · 02-04-2016 12:09AM

RopeDrink wrote: »

I did indeed, from the 4th Survivor & Tofu, to Mercs in RE3 - I've played all RE's except Zero, Code, the rail-shooters, the multiplayer (was it GC or Dreamcast) ones, and RE-R1. I would have liked RE-R1's Raid mode and thought I'd get to experience it in RE-R2 but that version is dumbed down drivel in comparison. Was fun for a bit but then you reach max-level and it's just an easy grindfest in tiny maps.

I've always loved Mercenaries in RE - RE4/5/6 took it to over-drive and viewers love of RE4 videos back in the day made it even more appealing (one of if not the most successful collection of things I've done for YouTube, beit Mercs matches, modding, or just derping around in professional).

Played RE6 Mercs hardcore for ages and lord knows how I past-held two world records but that's how seriously some took it - but it's much harder to get decent games there compared to RE5, which people are still playing. As much as I want Capcom to go back to roots, I am usually comfortable in knowing that it is very rare for them NOT to include at least one enjoyable mode regardless of whether I like the core game/principle or not. For now I've gone from RE5-GE Reunion to standard Mercenaries -- funny how that's harder than Reunion, but I've seen far too many inspiring pro-vids recently, makes me want to kick some Majini buttocks.

The original Resident Evil on the Sega Saturn had a Battle Game mode, featuring a Gold Tyrant and a zombified Wesker. I'm imagine very few people have played it. Also had a reskinned hunter in the main campaign called a Tick. Chris had to fight a second Tyrant in the lab as well.

Been looking over the various ports of the first 4 Resident Evil games, trying to decide which port was the best one to collect. Lots of difference between them.

Best ports like to be Resident Evil Directors Cut on PSX.
Resident Evil 2 on Dreamcast.
Resident Evil 3 on Gamecube.
Code Vernonica on Xbox 360/PS3.

Going to try to pick them all up at some stage.

Links234 · 02-04-2016 01:07AM

RopeDrink wrote: »

I seem to recall spending way too much time enjoying fishing and plot-building in the likes of Breath of Fire III back in yesteryear.

I heard they might be releasing Breath of Fire III on Steam in future, if so I'll have to grab it and reexperience what was one of the best jrps ever.

Azza · 02-04-2016 03:27PM

Capcom how I love and hate you at the same time.

_Godot_ · 03-04-2016 05:15AM

Links234 wrote:

I heard they might be releasing Breath of Fire III on Steam in future, if so I'll have to grab it and reexperience what was one of the best jrps ever.

So good I bought it twice (PSN and UMD), and I haven't even played it yet.

froog · 03-04-2016 05:13PM

the division
black desert online

and the old reliables

fm 2016
dota 2

Thinkingaboutit · 03-04-2016 06:20PM

Total War: Attila, Bully (again), Empire TW (again), Fallout IV obviously.

Links234 · 07-04-2016 07:06PM

I was gonna boot up some Warframe today, but gigantic fecking patch! :eek:

FTL instead it seems.

Lyaiera · 07-04-2016 08:23PM

After breaking back into games with Stardew Valley I've gone a completely different direction with my latest game, Arma 3. I know it's a few years old now but that just means they've ironed out everything.

I joined a group in multiplayer last night. I don't know if I actually shot anyone but I'm sure my suppressing fire was a big help to the fire squad.

The thing is, after multiplayer, and playing with non-scripted players I'm not too sure if I want to play the single player. Especially now I've a crappy weapon after running out of ammo in my first mission.

What games have you been playing lately?

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