What are you currently playing?

[TheMightyEthan]

Currently I'm enjoying it, but I'm not very far into it. But yeah, it's definitely a game in the Arkham/Shadow of Mordor lineage.

 

The fact that I got it for ~$5 net means it doesn't have a very high bar to clear for me to be happy with it.

[danielpholt]

I absolutely love the Arkham games, yet I really disliked Mad Max. Obviously the fact that I'm not invested in the MM world plays a part to some degree but I found everything to be a little too thin. It looks great, but everything else is simply okay. Very quickly lost the urge to continue with it.

[TheMightyEthan]

This fucking game is really making me want a sequel to RDR...

 

 

[Mal]

After three hours of Subnautica, I have figured out how to get to the point of building my base. It was more of trying to figure out what makes what and figuring out my basic inventory management system. Anyhow, suddenly a sprawling base is in the drawing boards. I'm having trouble getting down past 50 meters so a tunnel to hell is planned or at the very least mini bases for air, food and water. I also came across strong underwater currents. Something strong enough to break a base I think.

 

So far, it's pretty good after nearly dying to hunger and thirst in the first hour and to radiation in the last hour.

 

Oh yeah, the technical side of things: Initial load time is loooong. Changing graphical setting should be done in the main menu since doing so in game crashes it for me. There is also the piss poor graphical options that is just presets that reset to the lowest after every session. Kind of laggy at times when the world loads.

What is here though is awesome. The world is pretty alive. It might be one of the livest I've seen in a survival game.

Edited July 2, 2016 by MaliciousH

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, I also put about two hours into Subnautica tonight and it's pretty great. I'm starting to get a hang of things but for a while I was hanging too close to my pod and was running out of resources to gather, which slowed my progress down a bit. Hoping to have a base going tomorrow.

 

Also, survival mode is pretty forgiving. I figured it was permadeath, since this is a survival game, but that's a separate mode. When you die, you only lose whatever's in your inventory and you respawn. It was kind of a relief the first time I died of dehydration because losing all my progress would've been a bit demoralizing.

[Baconrath]

Man, post-difficulty spike Bison in the SF5 story mode is really pushing my poop back in. Guess I have to learn Nash now :I

[Mal]

I'm now at 15 hours. Screw Overwatch. Nothing beats running into an actual sea monster!

[deanb]

Man getting really tempted to pull the trigger, but on the other hand plenty to play n in 6 months time it'll be the Xmas sales n it'll be more developed by then. It's one of the few "survival" games that isn't MP-only though which is what draws me to them. I' like podding around on my own, rather than having to be concerned that someones is gonna pop out a bush n kill me for my shit.

[Mal]

From logs and radio transmissions, there seems to be an end game so I do agree with holding off on it till the game is fully released. Save the "wow" and sense of wonder for later. If you dive in right now, you might get burnt out.

 

As a side note, this game is really pacifist. The only real weapon I see is the knife but its more of a tool than a weapon. At most it's for a last minute defense against the small to shark-sized creatures. There are torpedoes but they're not explosive, non-lethal and they're kind of limited to a sub you can get later in the game.Again, they're more defensive than anything.

 

Edit: And judging by the road map, by December the 1.0 should be done by then.

Edited July 4, 2016 by MaliciousH

[Thursday Next]

Currently playing Zero Time Dilemma. Love Spike Chunsoft games. They are aces. Plots are convoluted af though.

[deanb]

My general funtimes with Starpoint Gemini is dwindling given I carry on getting blown the fuck up in my first upgraded ship, and it's really mixed bag where you can end up in areas with both "Trivial" and "Impossible" enemies so there doesn't seem to be any levelling aspect of sorts to the world (I suspect it's level scaling instead). So gonna call it quits on it for a while (the controls are very simple point n click affair for the most part so not gonna be totally locked out if it's a few months before I return).

 

Also playing FF Exvius on mobile too, which has nice SNES style FF graphics with the usual F2P type model on top though getting through it pretty damn fine atm with all the "Friends" I have on it securing me a shit ton of "Friend Points" so the only major issue on it is the usual energy process but not hit a limit on that so far, you can do a decent chunk of quests with what you have and it's about the time period you'd want to put in on a session. Mixing n matching up parties is pretty sweet with all the "Jobs" available, can really make them all play off each other quite well. It's the usual "crystals" n earth/fire/water/air shrine lark story wise. Familiar ground.

[toxicitizen]

Currently playing Zero Time Dilemma. Love Spike Chunsoft games. They are aces. Plots are convoluted af though.

I've also been playing Zero Time Dilemma the past few days. Almost 20h in and I still have no idea what the fuck is going on. I love it! I've seen a few things that I can guess will be expanded upon once I get into the final stretch, though. Starting to run out of branches on the flowchart, so I'm assuming that'll be soon. Hoping to finish it tonight, actually.

 

How do you feel about the way the story is told, by the way? It ended up growing on me a lot but at first I was a little disappointed by how it's generally a bit more... brief, I guess? I don't know if it was a budget thing or just a by-product of making the switch to full cutscenes rather than static characters with dialog boxes but I feel like most of the scenes are shorter than in previous games. It kinda felt like the game wasn't going as in-depth as the previous two but that's impossible to say for sure until I've finished it. 

[TheMightyEthan]

Been playing Deserts of Kharak.  I'm really digging how they treat the desert like an ocean.  I did experience a bug on the 3rd mission where the last objective became impossible to complete, and the only way to fix it was to restart the level (this was after more than an hour spent finishing it the first time).  It's a testament to how much I'm enjoying the game that I did restart the level instead of quitting for the night.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

GW2 mainly.

 

 

I also played through Out There once. Not as good as I'd hoped, but I'll give it a few more chances.

[Mister Jack]

I am trying really hard to get through System Shock so I can play System Shock 2 but even with the enhanced edition, it is really hard to like this game.  This might be the most atrocious first person interface I have ever seen, and I doubt it would have seemed much better if I played it at release.  It's also really easy to get lost and you will frequently be low on health, which means constant saving and reloading since the enemies hit like a truck.  I have a personal policy not to skip entries in a series with connected plotlines, but I am really tempted to make an exception here.

[TheMightyEthan]

Wait for the remaster.

[toxicitizen]

Wait for the remaster.

Yeah, at this point the only reason to play the original is if you're actually looking to play for a retro FPS with a completely dated UI.

 

---

 

As for me, I've been playing Dragon Ball Xenoverse on and off this week. So far, I'm of two minds about it. It's a pretty solid brawler and if you're into Dragon Ball it's just pure joy to play. Having your own created character join into all the big fights from the DBZ story is way more fun than I would've expected. And there's a pretty decent race selection, too. If I could just power through the story, I probably would have finished it by now. Oh and that opening is so good!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWatw8ZkWXI

 

The problem is that they decided to make it insanely difficult, for some fucking reason. You'll play a few story missions without any problems and suddenly you'll get your ass absolutely handed to you to the point where you literally don't stand a chance. And it's not just skills, it's numbers. The game has RPG mechanics, so it's actually possible to be straight up unable to deal damage to an opponent. So, now you need to go grind side-missions to level up, which gets a little boring since they're so repetitive.

 

It's a shame because it could've easily been the best Dragon Ball game I've ever played. But it's just way too grindy for that. Come to think of it, it could make for a pretty decent podcast game. I'm a couple months behind on Podquisition, I could use this game to catch up lol.

Edited July 9, 2016 by FLD

[CorgiShinobi]

The reason I held off was that from my understanding not only are there those RPG elements, but there is also RNG when it comes to items and abilities. If I'm going to be spending my summer with a game, I rather it not be doing the same fight multiple times in hopes of getting SSJ2 or whatever. Not to mention I've heard the online has always been a bit iffy.

 

Also there's suppose to be a Xenoverse 2 coming out and I feel that it's going to retread most of the stories.

[toxicitizen]

Yeah, the side-missions I mentioned do have random drops attached to them. It's mostly clothing, items and special moves (but none of the big ones). So, if you want to learn, for example, Piccolo's beam attack, that's not a drop, you just need to train with him. I've been mostly ignoring them so far and I really don't feel like I've missed out on anything significant. I really wish I could get the Saiyan armor without those goofy looking shoulder pads, though...

 

As for the online, apparently it was pretty bad at launch but it sounds like they improved it quite a bit. I haven't had any issues connecting or anything. The only online-related "issue" I encountered is that the player population is a bit low so long after launch, so finding online matches can be a bit difficult.

 

And yeah, Xenoverse 2 is coming in October. If they can fix the issues this one has, it could be pretty damn good. There's definitely a solid foundation here. Not sure about the story, though. This one has you playing through the main story arcs but there's a reason for it. Depending on where the plot goes, I could see Xenoverse 2 going in a completely new direction. I mean, it would be pretty dumb to redo the same thing all over again.

[deanb]

From watching my housemate play this, these guys decided to take the Fable 3 John Cleese menu and just go full hog with it.

 

edit: I am currently playing Heart of Stone in Witcher 3 and damn forget how funny this game could get when it contrasts against Geralts usual stoic demeanour. 

[toxicitizen]

Re:Xenoverse.

 

Alright, so, turns out once you get Super Saiyan (if you're playing as a Saiyan) as well as at least one good ultimate attack, the game gets significantly more manageable. My new strategy is:

 

1) hit them until my ki meter is full

2) Super Saiyan!
3) MAKANKOSAPPO!! MAKANKOSAPPO!! MAKANKOSAPPO!! MAKANKOSAPPO!! MAKANKOSAPPO!! (and so on)

4) repeat

 

That brilliant strategy has allowed me to power through the Cell, Android and Buu sagas without too much trouble.

 

Also, about the random drops, turns out it's not as bad as it sounds. Most of them have specific requirements for them to drop and I think some of them (mainly the moves and power-ups) are guaranteed to drop once you meet the requirement. The only thing I've had to actually farm for was Vegeta's battle suit, and that was only because I really wanted it for my character. Each piece drops separately and the chest one had a much lower drop rate. That wasn't super fun. But more important stuff like super moves or transformations like Super Saiyan have always dropped the first time I completed the requirements.

Edited July 14, 2016 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

Pokemon X.  They've made some slight changes to the experience system when really seems to reduce the amount of grinding needed before taking on gyms, which is a major plus.

[Baconrath]

Plugging away at Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth Remix trying to figure out the coinfeigm system with little to no solid documentation on how to get the better coins. Also perpetually feeling like I've botched the requirements for secret character X who appears at random in the recruit screen after the conditions are met (you can recruit the tutorial girl just by having all your party lvl 15+ and find her randomly).

 

Very grindy. Lots of Guide Damn It. I still enjoy the character development aspect of these types of games. though.

[Mal]

EDF 4.1

 

Years worth of sploosh released. This is indeed 2017 but better. Multiple classes and online co-op adds so much to the core gameplay. Performance is pretty damn good but it can get laggy in the multiplayer loadout menu. I'm not sure why. I also just crashed out from a game after four hours so that's something to note. There's suspicions of memory leaks in the Steam forums.

 

Porting wise, it's okay. Gameplay and performance is great 99% of the time. It's just the weird menu navigation, UI and options that's kind of irks me. It's so Japanese port-y. The menus can be navigated by having your mouse move through the menu options themselves. It's okay but it is clumsy and inferior to plain old mouse cursor navigation. UI clashes a lot and the communication menu is not intuitive. It took me a while to figure out it's the arrow keys. Y or however you bound it is for ingame text chat. There is no push to talk. Text notifications either overlays menus during setup, chat during the game are via speech bubbles that can be easily missed. It's just so awkward. For the option menu, you wished there was more stuff to it like voice chat volume, graphical options and other quality of life preferences.

 

But yeah, multiplayer is a blast. I'm kind of bummed that I crashed out of a session.  

[TheMightyEthan]

P3P. I actually started it a couple years ago and couldn't get into it, but then I played P4G and absolutely loved it, so I'm taking a go at this again while I'm waiting for P5.

 

I didn't realize it at the time, but I think the reason I couldn't get into it before was because of how the overworld is just a picture with a cursor, rather than actually letting you control a character on screen. It makes it all feel more detached. I think that's the difference with P4G that let me get into that one more. Of course now that I've played and loved P4G I'm more able to look past the interface of this one and see the game underneath, which I'm loving.