What are you currently playing?

[deanb]

So with Far Harbour and Blood and Wine being out recently I decided to finish off Borderlands 2 cos I'm an idiot

 

Nah, I started on Borderlands tail end of last week as I was between games n Blood n Wine wasn't out until yesterday. It's taken a bit longer than I suspected to wrap up. Especially as Metalcaveman had gotten myself n couple others Dragon Keep to play through in co-op but it all kinda fell apart. But I've got like maybe 1 main mission to play, and I'm halfway through Dragon Keep. I like the changes made.

 

I do dislike that DLC items will show up in inventory/quest list and if you click em it opens up the relevant Steam page. Kinda scummy move.

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm getting ready to try out Far Cry 3.  I got it years ago, but never really gave it a fair shot because it was the first (last gen) game that I really ran into trouble with my old graphics card and it frustrated me that I couldn't make it run smoothly while still being pretty.

 

Fast forward to now, my new GTX 1080, and I'm going to play that game maxed out while downsampling from 4k at 60 fps.

 

[toxicitizen]

That one's on my wishlist but I still havent finished FC 

Whaaaat?! Get back to it, then! I don't know what else you're playing right now but it's probably not as good!

 

You need to finish it so you can at least play SC and be blown away once you realize how much better it is.

[Mal]

I'm not going to lie, Hard Mode in the SC put me off the game until I can muster the will to go over it again.

[toxicitizen]

From what I heard, hard mode is just straight up unfair. It sounds like that's an issue with Falcom games in general. It's certainly not meant for a first playthrough, at the very least. I'd just stick to normal if I were you. 

[MetalCaveman]

Dark Souls, trying to get the platinum, having poise that actually works is awesome! \m/ \m/ Not being able to fast-travel between bonfires is... not so awesome.

[Mister Jack]

I've played Witcher 3 for nearly 35 hours and I haven't even left Novigrad yet.  This is going to be the game that kills me, isn't it?

 

 

I also wasn't sure if I wanted to romance Yennifer or Triss, but Triss let herself get tortured for me. It's gonna be pretty hard for Yennifer to top that kind of devotion.

 

[deanb]

While overall it's larger, Arg Skellige quests aren't much more of the game than the main Novigrad continent.

[danielpholt]

I've played Witcher 3 for nearly 35 hours and I haven't even left Novigrad yet.  This is going to be the game that kills me, isn't it?

 

 

I also wasn't sure if I wanted to romance Yennifer or Triss, but Triss let herself get tortured for me. It's gonna be pretty hard for Yennifer to top that kind of devotion.

 

 

 

I royally fucked up with Triss. Chose the wrong dialogue option and she was gone. 

 

Ended up sleeping with half of the prostitutes in the game, but they couldn't replace the Triss shaped whole in my heart.

[TheMightyEthan]

Mirror's Edge: Catalyst.

 

I went ahead and got a month of Origin Access because I was becoming a little worried that my CPU was going to be an issue in this game (I'm below recommended), and if it was I wanted to know so I could go ahead and order a replacement. Turns out I needn't have worried, my computer runs it wonderfully at 1080p60 (sadly I can't downsample from 4k), with the only drops due to loading as I move through the world. I could probably fix that with an SSD, which really I should get at some point anyway, but it's not intrusive enough to justify it right now.

[Mr. GOH!]

I find CPU recs bizarre these days. I'm running a mid-range i5 from 2012 that is below recommended specs on a number of games and have had zero issues. I think there are some poorly-optimized or very CPU-dependent games out there, but most multiplats won't be among them.

 

Edit: SSDs are getting cheaper than they ever have been and I have noticed serious improvements in load times in a number of games since switching. 

Edited June 3, 2016 by Mr. GOH!

[Mal]

My i7 950 was released in 2009 and it's still doing fine. It's not struggling that much. Most games it'll be fine in. For Doom 2016 it ran flawlessly. I expect the same with Mirror's Edge Catalyst. If anything is holding me back, it's my 6 GB of RAM. Some poorly optimized or demanding games will eat through it.

[TheMightyEthan]

Mirror's Edge: Catalyst.

And now my time with the trial is up, and I can't play any more until Tuesday.

 

Edit: SSDs are getting cheaper than they ever have been and I have noticed serious improvements in load times in a number of games since switching.

Yeah, ideally I'd like to be able to get at least 1TB for <~ $150, and currently they're ~$200. I just pared down the number of games I have installed and I still have 550GB of them, and games aren't getting any smaller.

[Hot Heart]

So I grabbed TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan since I found it cheap on eBay after cancelling my pre-order.

 

It's definitely not something that should be played solo, which I think is where all the reviews about it being "disappointing" come from. It feels like it's been pitched as an action version of a grindy MMO, or maybe a beat-em-up version of EDF (by comparison, it definitely should've been priced even lower than it is).

 

I played a few levels on normal and it's okay but something feels "off" the whole time (I'm not sure if it being 60fps would help here) and I can see how it gets dull and repetitive. However, jump online (which seems quite active currently) and bump up the difficulty and it becomes a whole other beast. The bosses are definitely the highlight, but the objectives also change on each playthrough of a level and some will really emphasise that teamwork aspect, like having two of you defusing bombs while two hold off enemies. On top of that, you've got a set of special abilities which help each other like a healing circle, slow-mo and combo moves.

 

I've got a video of my first online game (skip to 4:00 if you want to see the boss)

I'm pretty crap here (especially, since I keep wanting to use the Witcher 3 controls for locking on and dodging/blocking) but I'm still contributing to the team with my abilities, plus the little thing on the left ranks you in terms of performance... except when you go and spend it on items. Anyway, I was usually second throughout...

 

The other grindy element is that as you play you'll unlock Charms which then give you improved abilities. For example, I had one that gave me a 10% chance of freezing enemies every time I hit them (I kinda wanted to play Mikey, since he's quicker-hitting, but I let someone else take that) and after finishing that level I got some cool ones, like one that regens health and gives me a chance to poison enemies. I actually got the freeze one as some sort of RNG thing from dismantling 3 useless/identical ones as well. The Michelangelo player had a waaaay higher player score (I was at 6, he was about 49) which comes from playing a bunch, so I imagine he's both upgraded his abilities to increase their power and reduce cooldowns while getting some neat charms too.

 

I'm a sucker for TMNT anyway, but it really is fun online and I'm itching to play more and improve. Plus, as a fan of the new comics, it looks really pretty and I really dig how the turtles move. I mean, come on, you can make Leonardo breakdance!

[Mister Jack]

Odin Sphere is so much better on the ps4. On top of prettying up the sprites and fixing the framerate, they also completely redid the skill system, gave you the ability to make programmable macros for active skills (think Street Fighter), added a bunch of new midbosses, added a new item box and a traveling chef so you can cook on the go, balanced the exp gains, got rid of the stamina requirement for normal attacks, and made the alchemy and items easier to work with. If you still want to play the original version, though, all you have to do is pick Classic Mode in the main menu.

 

THIS is how an HD remake should be done.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

Edited June 8, 2016 by Mister Jack

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Mainly Overwatch, Civ5, and weekly raids in GW2. I've been pretty terrible at keeping up with gaming lately. 99% of the news I catch is word of mouth through IRC or Skype.

[deanb]

I had been doing Borderlands 2, and beat the main campaign and 95% of Dragon Keep, but the final boss battle was dicks so I've shelved that one. Currently playing Dishonored after discussing it and DXHR with Ethan other day as being on the "replay this game" list. Turns out I started playing it exactly 3 years and a day after I had last beaten it.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, I had restarted Dishonored between when I got my new graphics card and when Mirror's Edge came out, and just finished it today. I'm probably going to tackle a few games off my backlog before I go back for the Daud DLC.

[deanb]

I don't have the DLC. I guess if it goes cheap in the summer sale (when is that?) I might grab it.

[TheMightyEthan]

Hmm, this post was sitting on my work computer when I got back this morning, guess it's been sitting there all weekend:

 

I've instituted a 2-out-1-in rule for my backlog, and replaying an old game counts as the "1 in" (I just replayed Dishonored, but I'm still wanting to hit the DLC, plus DXHR, plus Skyward Sword).  I'm tackling all the PC games I've built up since I was holding off until I got a new graphics card.  First up on the list is Dragon Commander.

 

I'm only about an hour into it, but so far so awesome.  I was expecting it to be focused more around the battles, but really it seems like the political stuff in the ship is going to be the main hook for me.  It was a pleasant surprise though.  I'll have more thoughts once I've spent more time on it.

 

I think once I finish this one I'm going to tackle Shadowrun Returns.

 

-End Original Post-

 

I actually finished Dragon Commander over the weekend and started Shadowrun Returns.  Dragon Commander I talked a little bit about in the Games You've Beat thread.  Shadowrun is starting off nicely too, although so far I've spent about as much time in the character creator as I have actually playing.

[toxicitizen]

After I wrapped up Trails of Cold Steel, I didn't really know what to play next. I was going back and forth between Watch_Dogs and Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus and while both were enjoyable enough, neither really grabbed me enough to make them my main focus. I also started Danganronpa Another Episode and it's really cool but for some reason I haven't really felt drawn to it as much as the first two games.

 

I'm always hesitant to play long RPGs close to each other because I used to get burned out on the genre pretty easily. Like, just a few years ago if an RPG lasted more than 40 or so hours I could easily leave them unfinished for months before going back to them (if I ever did). I did exactly that with Dragon Age: Origins. Fucking Deep Roads, man... Anyway, point is I guess I'm over that now because I said fuck it and ended up starting what I actually wanted to play: Shin Megami Tensei IV.

 

About 12 hours in and so far it's a blast. Giving me serious Nocturne flashbacks, which is a very good thing. I just got to Tokyo and it's a shame that I knew about it because the lead up to it was pretty cool. I wouldn't really call it a spoiler since I've known that it was a location in the game for a while, I think it was even in some trailers or whatever. Not really a secret. But knowing I would get there early-ish in the game made it pretty easy to figure out that 

 

 

I would get there by going deeper into Naraku.

 

 

Would've been a pretty cool twist if it had been a complete surprise. But man, this game is fucking brutal. I had heard that the beginning was particularly rough but holy shit. Two bosses in particular will completely fucking annihilate you if you don't find out their weakness and abuse the shit out of them. I don't remember Nocturne being this bad, not even Matador and the other fiends felt quite this impossible. Hell, even basic encounters can and will wipe out your entire party on a lucky turn. It can make for some pretty serious frustration but it's been happening with decreasing frequency so hopefully it'll stop being an issue before long. 

 

I think so far I'm enjoying it more than Nocturne. I know Nocturne is generally regarded as the superior game and it's too early to really know for sure but it's certainly more refined in a lot of areas. For example, the fusion mechanics in Nocturne were just downright painful coming from Persona 4 Golden. Also, I like the overall presentation and visual style a lot more but I suppose that's entirely subjective.

[CorgiShinobi]

I got The Evil Within something like almost 1.5 years ago and never touched it. I'm trying to go through some backlog to justify getting any new games in the future.

 

Eh, it's alright so far. It isn't as polished as I would hope and while it definitely plays off a RE4 formula, it also feels clunky. I suspect part of it is intentional, but also some of the in-game models and actions wigging out. Can't say I'm drawn to finishing right away.

[TheMightyEthan]

Contrary to GOH's advice I went ahead and started playing Mad Max.  It's quite pretty at 4k.

 

 

[Hot Heart]

Mad Max Beyond Draw Distance.

[deanb]

I heard if you're into the Batman games it's meant to be sort of okay, just otherwise generally semi-mediocre game.

 

I'm currently playing Starpoint Gemini which is your usual space ship fare though a bit more forgiving n somewhat brightly coloured. The voice acting is laughably bad (there's a sort of RPG element to it). Enjoying myself so far.