What are you currently playing?

[MetalCaveman]

Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin

 

Offline only.

 

This is certainly a change from the DS2 I remember (original vanilla), bunch of enemy placements have changed and now there are dragons where there used to be nothing, this is going to be a thing.

 

One thing that took me by surprise, though I don't remember much from my original playthrough, was weapon durability always this bad? Kill a couple of knights and my sword is already half-broken, I know it's automatically repaired when using a bonfire but still, feels like you need to carry an entire arsenal to make up for how fast stuff breaks.

[TheMightyEthan]

Psychonauts 2

 

I'm only about an hour in, but so far I'm really enjoying it. Hopefully the rest of the game stays this good. Also, playing on XSX and I am so torn between 4k60 and 1440p120. 4k is so crisp, but 120 is so smooth.

 

Also, looking at my gamercard I just realize that none of my last 6 games are Playstation (Scarlet Nexus technically is but that shouldn't be there, I just launched it because I was messing with TV settings and needed an SDR signal to test). That is quite the flip from the last... 8 years? Jesus.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Are the games not available for Playstation, or is it just not the best experience for multi-platform games?

[TheMightyEthan]

I've been playing a lot of games on Gamepass, so that's most of it, but some of it is also that Xbox is more powerful so lots of games run better there. It hasn't even been a month and my PlayStation is already turning into an exclusives machine like my Switch.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

Any temptation to sell it at a profit and buy it a few years down the line when it's cheaper and has more exclusives?

 

eta: that wasn't a hint btw, I'm not tempted to jump into this gen yet.

Edited January 29, 2022 by TheFlyingGerbil

[TheMightyEthan]

None at all, very few of the games I've been playing on Xbox are exclusive, so I could be playing them on PlayStation, but since I have both I'm playing them on Xbox because they're slightly better there/available as part of Gamepass. But most of PlayStation's exclusives are must-plays for me, so if I had to give one up it would be the Xbox, because I wouldn't lose access to as many of the games I care about that way.

[danielpholt]

Pokemon Legends Arceus 

 

I'm gonna keep this short, partly because I don't have the language to say what I think about this game, and partly because I'm still holding out hope that maybe it'll get better. What I will say is that Pokemon Legends Arceus is a massively disappointing game that's full of half finished ideas, uninteresting fetch quests, an uninspiring open world and a core gameplay loop that I find to be pretty boring. And on top of all that, it runs and looks like absolutely ass. Not you know, like Selma Heyak's ass in that scene from the late 90's Action Comedy Wild Wild West staring Will Smith, Kevin Kline and (obviously) Selma Hayek. No, it looks like the ass of a Octogenarian with a prolapse. 

 

Anyway, I remain hopeful that maybe as I progress further into the game it'll become a little less hand-holdy, maybe a little more willing to let me figure things out on my own because after three hours I'm finding myself constantly frustrated by the near endless cutscenes involving two or three characters silently talking to one another whilst also explaining a fairly basic video game mechanic.

 

It has great music.

Edited January 30, 2022 by danielpholt
Not short. Sorry.

[Baconrath]

I've been playing (HBS) Battletech with the Advanced 3062 mod(s) and it has 100% increased my enjoyment of the game. It now has a ton of more obscure mechs and weapons and you can take 2 lances of 4 mechs and 4 vehicles if you have all the drop upgrades. 

 

One of the changes I've been enjoying is that they took away the arbitrary ammo count on flamers that was there for "balance" so now I can absolutely cook mechs and they cant do much about it >:^)

 

 

 

 

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I'm playing Ni No Kuni II. Don't remember the first one well enough to know if there are any links between the two but I'm enjoying it so far. Lofty looks like a baby Lisa Simpson so isn't a patch on Drippy but at least he's still Welsh.

Wondering if it will get to a point where RPG tactics are required for the fighting because I'm just button mashing at the moment like an action game so will probably be screwed if that point does arrive.

With the kingdom running, combat and top down army battles there seems to be a lot going on. Plus there are three distinct art styles, the main studio ghibli style, then a realistic overworld map with chibi characters on it's like half a dozen teams created the game without talking to each other until the last minute and had to just mash it all together.

[TheMightyEthan]

My wife beat it and says pretty much it was a lot of button mashing.

[MetalCaveman]

God Eater 2

 

There's a huge disconnect between how some characters talk/feel about a certain other character and how I feel about said character.

 

Makes sense, kinda

 

Spoiler

Dude was the director of the place, the head honcho, so it makes sense some people only see him as that, while others... had other relationships with him. Still, the fact that he was an asshole, felt superior to everyone due to his title alone, treated God Eaters like trash and once told Ciel to basically kill herself just to save his mechanical soldiers means I kinda hate his guts lol.

 

Some characters mention how said character "has a place to go back to" or "is now working at HQ!" and they seem happy about it, meanwhile, I don't want to hear about this character again, unless it's to find out he got eaten by a monster.

 

Remnant From the Ashes

 

A fun Souls-like, with guns, so far it feels fairly balanced, not too frustrating, and the story is quite interesting, but I'm still at the start though, plenty of time for things to go south lol.

 

Rainbow Six Extraction

 

I assume the story was explained in R6 Siege? So far there isn't much in the way of a story. What are these things, are they aliens? Monsters? Mutants? Who knows! lol

 

The MIA operator thing is very annoying though, long story short, if you "die" during a mission, that operator is out, you can't select them again until you launch a rescue mission. In order to actually rescue an operator, you have to find them in the level, then pull them out from some weird tree thing, as you do this, if you alerted enemies you'll have to deal with them, if not, you still have to deal with the tree itself, you have to hold a button to free the operator, depleting the tree's energy gauge, as you do this, energy spores will begin to move along some tendrils towards the tree, you have to shoot them or the operator will be dragged back in and you have to start again.

 

After that, you have to take the operator to either an extraction zone, or the next zone gate, they will lose some XP, but you'll be able to send them back out. Kinda.

 

This game really wants you to try all the operators, after every mission, operators don't recover their full health, you have to let them "rest" for a couple of missions while you take someone else.

 

I don't know much about Siege, but I assume these are the same loadouts operators have in that game, I say this because none of the loadouts seem to be that useful against these creatures. Hearbeat detectors reveals nests, but don't do anything to detect enemies, mines just stun them, not that useful for certain areas where something that goes boom would be more useful, breaking walls and barricades doesn't seem that useful yet, etc. There's a weapon upgrade that burns the goop that slows you down and alerts enemies, but that one is locked behind the highest research level.

 

In general though, not too bad, I see this as a game that's fun with friends, and kinda good in short bursts solo, just log in, complete a lvl 1 incursion, level up some operators, then play something else.

 

 

The hype for Elden Ring is too much and I'm kinda going crazy looking for games to play to pass the time.

[TheMightyEthan]

Horizon Forbidden West

 

Basically more of the first game, but better. I dig it.

[Baconrath]

I havent gone online much cause Im still a bit self conscious of my wifi connection but this has been pretty fun so far...

 

...but good grief are my inputs bad 

[danielpholt]

Tunic - Xbox - Gamepass

 

If I'm being reductive I'll say this is Zelda meets Dark Souls meets Fez, and it's kind of great. I don't really have the language or critical ability to state what makes it amazing, but after 9-10 hours I'm still absolutely enjoying it. 

 

There's a bit of a learning curve; nothing is spelt out to you and the combat (especially early) is kinda difficult to get to grips with (although it's far from complicated), but if you give it a chance there's so much to enjoy here. 

 

As I mentioned, big Fez vibes in how the game presents it's puzzles. If that's up your alley then definitely check it out. 

 

[TheMightyEthan]

That game is near the top of my "to play" list.

[toxicitizen]

I was feeling pretty burnt out on Elden Ring so I had to take a break. Game's just too big and/or I'm just getting too old for that much Souls I guess lmao. So yeah, I was gonna take a short break and the rerelease of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax came out with perfect timing so I decided to dig into it right away.

 

And now I'm super tempted to both get back to P4G and finish my playthrough before doing P4AU's story mode but also now I have this fighting game itch so I wanna fire up SFV and I just reinstalled Dragon Ball FighterZ...

 

All of this with Elden Ring and Yakuza 3 (that I started way back in October) both unfinished. What is wrong with me lol? It's like no matter what I play my brain goes

 

[TheMightyEthan]

Grass is always greener.

[Mister Jack]

I've done pretty much everything in Elden Ring at this point but I was still wanting more so I decided to reinstall Dark Souls Remastered to get the rest of the trophies I never got the first time I played it, and while I still think it's a good game it's hard to go back to the old formula. I miss being able to fast travel without restrictions. I miss having customizable weapon skills. I miss having environments with decent lighting. I miss having unlimited summons. I REALLY miss having a dedicated jump button.

 

I'm still enjoying the game and I intend to see my trophy hunt through, but I have to wonder if I'll be going back to this one again in the future when Elden Ring is sitting right there and is better in pretty much every way. If I'm not burnt out when I finish with DS1 I might replay DS3 to get all the trophies there so I can say I platinumed every From game except for DS2, which I don't want to put myself through playing ever again.

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I had been playing Dark Souls Remastered before Elden Ring launched and like 50h into my Elden Ring playthrough I randomly fired it up again because I felt like taking another crack at the boss I had been stuck on (Black Dragon Kalameet). And I just could not believe how slow and sluggish it was.

 

When you get knocked down it takes approximately 9 years before you get back up and you actually come to a complete stop when you drink from the estus flask! The first time it happened I screamed at the screen lol. That particular detail had never stood out to me before but now I don't think I can ever fully go back to Dark Souls 1. It's still a really good game but I think it's finally going to start feeling a bit dated for me. There's just too many QoL improvements in Elden Ring. Shield counters alone have completely changed the way I play.

[TheMightyEthan]

More than anything else I've heard that comment makes me think Elden Ring might actually be for me, even though none of the other From games have been. QoL improvements is what it needed.

[MetalCaveman]

150 Hours into Elden Ring and I think I've finally found my build.

 

After spending 20 minutes trying to complete a certain parkour section (20 mins doesn't sound like much, but when each run is 20-40 seconds, it feels like an eternity lol) I got a giant shield, when upgraded and paired with the shield boost talisman, it blocks every physical attack without issue, and even without draining stamina at all. Add the shield charge ash of war and the talisman that increases non-physical defence and I'm now an impenetrable wall that can constantly charge against enemies dealing a fair bit of damage.

 

Certain things, like poison, bleed, etc, still affect you, but it's pretty fun to just run around with a giant shield.

 

My weapon history:

 

club -> knight greatsword -> THE GREATSWORD -> Gravitational Greatswords of DOOM -> Giant Hammer -> Other more different Giant Hammer -> Shield

 

[Mister Jack]

I decided to go for that Dark Souls III platinum and holy shit, I forgot how ridiculously hard it is right out the gate. Even the tutorial boss took me five tries. I've beaten the game before but it's been a long time and I no longer have my save file so I had to start from scratch. I just hope it lets up a little later on because if not this is going to be a really painful platinum.

[TheMightyEthan]

I've been playing Cyberpunk and really quite enjoying it. The general consensus seemed to be "there's actually a pretty good game buried under all the bugs" but I'm actually enjoying it more than that led me to believe. The world is really cool, and the hacking stuff is well integrated into combat. Honestly the biggest issue I have is that it's too engaging, something about it encourages me to really really roleplay, doing only what my character would actually do, and not do things for out-of-game reasons. The reason that's an issue is because it means I've been doing almost no side content, since V's got some pretty damn good reasons to want to deal with the main story ASAP, so I feel like I'm not getting the most out of the game (though I have been doing sidequests that feel emotionally important to V, so mainly the ones that deal with main characters, just not the random job type ones).

 

The other thing is the shooting doesn't feel good at all on a controller, but since I'm playing a netrunner I typically avoid most combat, and now I have a smart gun that auto-targets with guided bullets so it's really not an issue. 

 

I'm coming up on the end now, and assuming it sticks the landing I anticipate giving it high marks.

[Mister Jack]

I know they did an update a while back that changed a lot of systems around so it's possible that you're playing a different game than I did. I'm curious about it but I'm waiting for the NG+ update before I go back to it. I only need a couple more cars for the platinum but there literally isn't enough money in the game to buy them all unless you focus on it specifically.

[toxicitizen]

28 minutes ago, Mister Jack said:

I only need a couple more cars for the platinum but there literally isn't enough money in the game to buy them all unless you focus on it specifically.

 

That's the last thing I did and yeah, by the end I was basically selling everything I owned, including my clothes, and still came up short. Ended up having to farm some enemy encounters for loot to sell.

 

I'm still missing two achievements because I didn't save enough stats/skill points to max out one and craft legendary items, though. Gonna have to do a replay at some point. Didn't know they were gonna add NG+, though. That'll be handy for that.

 

----------

 

Also, yesterday I caved and got back into P4G. I remember bouncing off of it after 40h when it launched on Steam (I think I may have gotten distracted from it by another release) but I'm really enjoying getting back into it. P4AU really gave me an itch to spend time with these characters again. Hopefully I can finish it quickly and then rush through NG+ to finally get all the achievements. Never did bother getting the Platinum on Vita.

Edited March 25, 2022 by toxicitizen