What are you currently playing?

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Guild Wars 2. Recorded some footage of an undead dragon world boss. Not the best due to framerate drops and shitty North American bandwidth.

[Luftwaffles]

Euro Truck Simulator 2. It's actually kinda fun and relaxing. Not disappointed with where my $10 has gone. 

[TCP]

Playing through the Assassin's Creed III King Washington DLC. A little steep for $10 x3. However, it's great to revisit AC3. It's still my favourite game of that franchise. I never quite understood the hate on this game. Yeah, it took too long to get to actually playing as Connor, but the Haytham stuff was fun! I think that was just a problem of marketing, since no one really knew you'd spend a good 1/3 of the game as someone else, I can maybe understand the disappointment. There was also some problems with some mechanics (crafting) not being properly explained. But other than that, it was an Assassins Creed game, the tree running felt great, the frontier was awesome, and things the game tried to do, like having snow actually change the game world and the way you traverse, worked great. Not to mention how often do you see an actual First Nations character, played by a First Nations person, in popculture? Especially considering the way the treatment of aboriginal people in that area has been glossed over, it was great to see that represented. 

THAT SAID, the DLC is pretty good. I always prefer DLC giving us new areas to explore, like the Fallout/Elder Scrolls DLC (well the good ones). This DLC gives us an interesting enough story, and new gameplay mechanics, so Ubi has managed to keep it interesting. Just for basically half the price of the game, not really enough new content here. This would have been great as 3 $5 DLC packs, or one $15. 

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I'm still playing through  XCOM: EU. I assume I'm approaching the end as in I'm in the last third of the game? I'm almost to the point where I can launch a satellite in each country. I waited forever to do it but I did the alien base attack where you need the skeleton key.

[toxicitizen]

Lol. The alien base attack is only the first of the main story missions. You've only just finished the first third. If you've got satellites everywhere, though, the rest should be kind of a cakewalk (assuming you're playing on normal). 

Edited July 22, 2013 by FLD

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

Yeah, I figured my pacing was just off, so I should be able to tear through a lot of it. I think I like managing the base more than doing missions.

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, base management is fun. I just wish there was more depth to it. That's one aspect I really hope they expand upon in whatever they're doing next, whether it's an expansion or a sequel.

 

In the original, you really had to be more strategic about how you built stuff because at some point the aliens would attack your base and if you didn't have choke points you were fucked. Also, you ended up having bases all over the world instead of just having hangars for your aircrafts.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Shadowrun Returns. Been playing it for the last four or five hours. Just released today. It pays homage in many ways to the PC RPGs of yore—those dusty isometric romps centered on character customization and dialogue.

Lamentably, it's lacking in the exploration department. "Woefully inadequate," says the hooker I cannot initiate dialogue with. Areas are segmented, tiny, and remind me of a corridor shooter in their mostly-linear approach. There are little side areas, but most are empty and only occasionally have anything at all to interact with beyond a wayward NPC.

And there is no manual saving or backtracking. Only auto-saving (and only when entering a new zone) and moving forward.

That said, the aforementioned character customization is competent enough if not quite what you'd expect from a video game attempting to be something from the era of 200-page instruction manuals. The dialogue is convincing and scattered with a range of possible responses (skill prerequisites willing).

The combat is smart enough, but I don't feel as though I'm far enough in the game to fully grasp the potential. It's turn-based; it's simple yet refined. It doesn't really leave me wanting at this point.

All things considered, I'm playing the game. The grisly 2D cyberpunk-fantasy facade is pleasant enough.

 

Screenshots: http://steamcommunity.com/id/elvenampersands/screenshots/?appid=234650&sort=newestfirst&browsefilter=myfiles&view=grid

[TheMightyEthan]

Lamentably, it's lacking in the exploration department. "Woefully inadequate," says the hooker I cannot initiate dialogue with. Areas are segmented, tiny, and remind me of a corridor shooter in their mostly-linear approach. There are little side areas, but most are empty and only occasionally have anything at all to interact with beyond a wayward NPC.

 

And there is no manual saving or backtracking. Only auto-saving (and only when entering a new zone) and moving forward.

There goes my interest.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

No exploration is definitely a downer. Unsure about game saves. This seems to be a "wait and see" sort of game at this point.

[TheMightyEthan]

The lack of manual saving doesn't bother me as much as the lack of backtracking.  Though I do like manual saving.  Not necessarily for save scumming, but just because I need to be able to quit games unexpectedly and I don't like having to replay stuff I've already done.

[toxicitizen]

I've been digging into Don't Starve a bit more. I think I'm getting to a point where I've got the fundamentals down and can start focusing on more long-term goals. It's a really fun game but some aspects of it can get a bit tedious after a while.

 

After almost dying to a night time spider attack, I started trying to build a wall around my camp only to realize that I actually needed an absolute shitload of wood to do that. So it was either chopping down trees endlessly or moving my entire camp to a less spider-infested area. Also, it can get really stressful when you're preparing to settle down for the night only to realize you're short a few things to make a fire. So you need to run off and find some ASAP otherwise it's dead o'clock. Fun times.

[Luftwaffles]

Assassin's Creed 3. It's pretty good. I do understand why a lot of people didn't like it, it doesn't really change much other than the setting, combat and controls are still easy peasy, but as someone who hasn't played an Asssassin's Creed game to completion since Brotherhood, it's a good return to the series.

 

On and the naval combat is fantastic.

[TheMightyEthan]

There's only really been on game between AC3 and Brotherhood, unless you count Liberation.

[TCP]

Free running in the trees was ballin'

[madbassman39]

Kingdoms of Amalur. I picked the game up for $7.50 and figured I'd play it at that price. First thing I thought was "man the demo does not do this game justice one bit." Maybe I'm still riding on the coattails of Darksiders 2 gameplay, but I'm enjoying it a lot more than I did the demo.

[TheMightyEthan]

I thought the exact same thing.  The demo had me at "this is very mildly interesting" but once I got the actual game I fucking loved it.

[madbassman39]

I actually haven't done much beyond the demo area, but the combat just interests me more than it did in the demo. It just feels more indepth than what the demo led me to believe.

[TCP]

Still hoping the KoA DLC goes on sale on PSN at some point, would love to hop back into that game.

[deanb]

I'd given Shadowrun a bit of a spin last night. I agree with much of Tenshi's criticism. It has many of the old school isometric RPG bells and whistles so that's all good. The save thing however is a massive pain in the butt and I see no reason for it to have been designed that way. And yeah, if you're someone that likes exploring you want to head elsewhere, maps are super tidgy and there's not much to explore for. There's like 3-4 things to look at per level. Feels pretty linear too, not much in the way of reactions or changes to choices.

 

I'd say it's a game that'll maybe/hopefully get better with updates and as community makes use of their campaign editor. I'd be interested in picking it up in future mind.

[Hot Heart]

Who the fuck makes a PC game auto-save only?

[deanb]

Harebrained Schemes apparently.

[toxicitizen]

Didn't they say the checkpoints-only thing was because they lacked the resources to implement proper manual saves?

 

Don't quote me on this, but I think I remember reading somewhere that they wanted to patch in a proper save system later down the line.

 

Personally, it's not a deal breaker but I can easily see how it might cause play sessions to end abruptly. "I have to replay the last 30 minutes???! Fuck that!"

[TheMightyEthan]

Harebrained Schemes apparently.

 

Sounds like their name is appropriate.  Dohoho.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

It does help that most of the areas are bite-sized, but that really isn't a point in the game's favor.

 

It does beg the question of why you're making a video game at all if you don't have the resources to implement manual saves.

 

I'm currently pretty far in the game. Nearing the ending, I'd wager. It's still following the same path as my previous post.

Edited July 26, 2013 by Saturnine Tenshi