The currently playing and random game thoughts thread (Jan 23 to Feb 06)

[Frindis]

@Zloth Thanks for the tip Still in the starter zone, so some extra loot will come in handy for my future adventures.

 

[Ryzengang]

Oh I know Joe's reviews are to be taken with a grain of salt overall, and I agree he's a bit off point and nonsensical on a lot of his comments. I guess if I haven't missed those chests, I can live with the confusion, but I prefer maps and games that make such things more clear, as those are very valuable items. I DID get over my loathing for being inundated with puzzles during the early part of RE Village once I got familiar with the game. I guess this one is an acquired taste too.

BTW, one of Joe's failures that I couldn't believe was so hard for him was when he kept dying in The Evil Within. He was intent on doing a complete playthrough of it, but never finished it. I mean don't get me wrong, the game is challenging, just not insurmountable like he made it look. My point is I watch his stuff more for laughs than to hear his opinions. His stuff is a lot like what you see on Clueless Gamer, but at least Conan knows he sucks. Maybe I suck a bit for quoting Joe though. LOL

FWIW I disagree with a lot of your original points but I do agree on the map. Could definitely be better; I prefer function over form when it comes to maps.

 

[Frag Maniac]

FWIW I disagree with a lot of your original points but I do agree on the map. Could definitely be better; I prefer function over form when it comes to maps.

Yeah I realize most if not all of those other opinions were a matter of personal preference, but seriously, using the same three letters on EVERY locked chest? That makes it a simple matter of just looking until you find those same letters every time instead of actually solving any puzzle.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Those things that come out of the portal are tough, but if you spam "F" it's very doable. Or you can just come back later when you are stronger, or just ignore them entirely. They are an optional challenge.

Well I went back to them after doing the Light of Alfheim mission and stopping at the shop to finally swap out better armor and such. Atreus is also now equipped with the wolf call skill on his bow. It took a little over 6 min just the same, but I was mostly keeping my distance, making sure Atreus was firing enough shots to keep them focused on him, while I did some heavy axe tosses at them and my heavy frost slam attack. The main thing I hate about that fight is the limited amount of space you have to work with.

Actually though, the guy in the cave after exiting Alfheim with the long vertical horns on his head whom jumps and does a 3 stream burst while in the air when you get his health down was more intimidating because we took him on with a very low rage meter and level 1 gear. I simply stood at one end of that long ridge to the side of the big chasm in the floor, did some heavy axe tosses, dodged sideways when he came at me, ran to the other end, did some more heavy tosses, and eventually got the prompt to do the up close finisher.

I'm liking the chest puzzles better now, Some take a bit of doing to solve, but mainly just a matter of careful observation of the surroundings. I'm also liking Atreus much better now. He's quite the badass once you upgrade him a bit. Also got my first Soul Eater on Brok's side quest to find his Alchemist, but it felt a lot like that one is a ton easier than the one that appears after you get Sindri's Whetstone. However it may just seem that way because in Brok's mission there's FAR better places to take cover and damage his weak spot safely as he fires at you.

I've also resorted to a good optimized graphics settings guide, as Alfheim on max settings felt a bit laggy in places. For that I referred to Digital Foundry, as I did for RE Village and Halo Infinite. It boosted my FPS, but when running at 1440 DSR as DF suggests, even the hardlight bridge to the realm travel room drops FPS a lot, so I went back to 1080, and can pretty much stay at 60 FPS now. It's kind of annoying that the only way I can run 1440 DSR is by setting my desktop to that anyway.

 

[Pifanjr]

I finished the Repanse Vortex campaign in Warhammer 2 yesterday. The last fight was rather trivial, as I mostly just send all my heroes forth and then charged my royal pegasi into their ranged units until everything had died. My heroes had hardly lost any life at the end.

I then started a new campaign as Direfin and it's been quite fun. I've tried both Luthor Harkon and Noctilus in a co-op campaign but both used nothing but cheap deckhand mobs to block the AI while my ranged units did all the damage. With Direfin I can now summon two units of ghostly cavalry, 4 units of deckhand mobs and 2 units of rotting prometheans to flank infantry, stop cavalry and surprise ranged units. My own ranged units still do most of the damage, but al the summons make the enemy route much faster. Also syreens are a lot more useful than I thought, as they take basically no damage from non-magical attacks and do decent damage.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Got some time in playing HZD today. I got the Golden Travel Pack, which is cool to have. Had to do some hunting for fox skins, though.

 

[Zloth]

I didn't even know there was a golden travel pack until I was about 75% done with the main game. Travel packs are common treasure and easy to make - but I still went fox hunting as soon as I saw the buying requirements.

I just discovered the fire claw machine. It was mean to me. I think I might need to finally use whatever fire resist potions I've gotten over the course of the entire game.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I didn't even know there was a golden travel pack until I was about 75% done with the main game. Travel packs are common treasure and easy to make - but I still went fox hunting as soon as I saw the buying requirements.

I just discovered the fire claw machine. It was mean to me. I think I might need to finally use whatever fire resist potions I've gotten over the course of the entire game.

I noticed that in the traders' resources, and set out to get one right away. I found out that you're more likely to get a fox skin if you kill if from a far distance with a sharpshooter bow zoomed in.

I just came upon my first Deathbringer in the quest where you try to learn about your mother at the ruins. I quit before fighting it. Wow! I'm not sure how I'm going to pull this off.

 

[Pifanjr]

I continued my Direfin campaign in Warhammer 2. I decided to take out Wulfhart, since they were close and they were already mad at me for taking out another empire faction. Good thing too, as the turn before I sieged them they started raiding me, the bastards.

They had a full 20 stack in their city with another 8 in the garrison. I had my own 20 stack and, I think, a 13 stack as reinforcements. The auto-resolve gave me a valiant defeat.

I was fortunate enough to find a ship wreck before the battle that gave my entire army regeneration, which is probably what saved me. My gunpowder units were basically useless as I couldn't get a clean shot for 90% of the battle. Only my reinforcements managed to get onto the walls and shoot from there. My main army made two holes in the walls and broke open the gates, but just couldn't properly break through the infantry behind it enough to also clear the walls. My summons, which I normally rely on a lot too, weren't much helped in the cramped space either.

My heroes ended up doing most of the work, though the two from my reinforcements ended up being almost killed by Wulfhart himself, who I realized almost too late was sniping them from the center of the city. I didn't realize he had so much range or did that much damage.

In the end I lost my carronades (I hadn't realized they positioned themselves within range of enemy archers at some point), my mournguls and a bunch of zombies. Not ideal, but still a lot better than the auto-resolve. And while the only cities I've managed to get so far are all on the brink of rebellion, I do have a lot of money, so it's not going all that badly.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I seem to be at or at least near end game in God of War now. I have the Chaos Blades, and when traveling back to Midgard from Helheim, Brok said he could now make the Mystic Gates work both ways, however all but his main one in Midgard are still locked. Am I missing something here?

 

[Johnway]

Well... after seeing the challenge rewards for POE's next league, i can say that i'm going to skip it this time. yes, character effects and weapons skins are nice, but i've got loads already from other challenges. The Character effects in particular are nothing compared to my ritual league one.

So i'm playing other games for now. i'll have a look at my back log and see what to play. picked a puzzle game this time; manifold garden. So far i like it, if you liked antechamber, you'll enjoy manifold garden.

 

[Zloth]

I just came upon my first Deathbringer in the quest where you try to learn about your mother at the ruins. I quit before fighting it. Wow! I'm not sure how I'm going to pull this off.

Easy one. It's still stuck in the ground, so it can't move. Run/diving summersault around and you'll find a place where you can hide from the deathbringer's shots. Kill off most of the humans using stealth before waking the thing up.

That was actually the second deathbringer I saw - but I didn't know what I was looking at with the first one.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Well it turned out I hadn't gotten the "Unity Stone" in God of War yet, so I DID manage to travel to Jotunheim. However it took so long to figure out how to get there, I forgot I was going to mop up Favor quests and other side stuff first, and basically gear up for tougher battles. As a result I kinda got locked into the final battle sooner than I wanted to, which took quite some doing to win.

I've been mopping up unfinished side stuff since finishing the main campaign, but there are lots of realms still locked by Zeus, including Muspelheim, which according to one wiki I read is supposed to be a realm you visit before even getting the Unity Stone or going to Jotunheim. Further reading says Muspelheim is unlocked via finding language ciphers though.

This game can be quite confusing, and the map still continues to annoy me to no end. It's look lacks realism, it's not very useful for finding things, and it's even hard just to get the cursor to land on an item you want to add to the compass. I really hope Ragnarok has a better map.

 

[Brian Boru]

Folks, a request: Please mention the game you're posting about in the post, so future readers who find your post via a search engine won't be lost.

Thanks

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Easy one. It's still stuck in the ground, so it can't move. Run/diving summersault around and you'll find a place where you can hide from the deathbringer's shots. Kill off most of the humans using stealth before waking the thing up.

That was actually the second deathbringer I saw - but I didn't know what I was looking at with the first one.

I did get past that first Deathbringer (in Horizon: Zero Dawn, for Brian ). It sure wasn't easy, though. I can't imagine fighting one at full power with legs. I guess I'll probably get a chance soon.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Folks, a request: Please mention the game you're posting about in the post, so future readers who find your post via a search engine won't be lost.

Thanks

You're right, I knew I messed up when I didn't do that. I edited it and color coded the title just to be clear.

 

[Zloth]

I finished H:0D and started playing ME1(LE). I thought about finishing up the OW:EotE DLC but... meh. (Because future readers enjoy puzzling out initials!)

So yeah, back to Mass Effect! This time as (drum roll) Conrad Shepard! I forgot Conrad's cool beard, but I should be able to give ME's adoring fan the adoration he deserves.

I ended up slogging through almost all the Citadel's secondary quests because I didn't realize the journal was tabbed and wasn't sure where to go. I found every fraggin' spider engineer thing. Again. Time to go out into space now.

 

[mainer]

I found every fraggin' spider engineer thing. Again

View: https://youtu.be/5PZBSB2tA_8

 

[flashn00b]

A random gaming thought, huh. Suppose i'll share one that i've got cuz upon hearing word that the RDNA3 GPUs are currently being developed, I couldn't help but actually want Epic Games to fund a PC version of the inevitable PS5 port of Gundam Extreme VS 2 XBOOST. Iunno, I just can't help but think that "Bandai Namco's flagship Gundam game running on the RX-78(00)" would be an excellent opportunity waiting to be seized. Bonus points if a three-way team-up between Bandai Namco Studios, Epic Games, and AMD ended with a Casval's Gundam skin for the RX-78-2

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I finished H:0D and started playing ME1(LE). I thought about finishing up the OW:EotE DLC but... meh. (Because future readers enjoy puzzling out initials!)

I'm still chipping away at HZD. I just finished the part of the main quest where you save Meridian.

 

[Zloth]

I'm getting reminders of a lot of Mass Effect things I had forgotten. Like how Commander Shepard can only run for about 5 seconds before getting winded (eye roll). I had forgotten the way people, at the end of conversations, will sometimes turn to their right and walk off, too. And OMG, the controls for the Mako are sooooooo bad! IJKM to steer, mouse to aim the turret.... AND to steer!? I try to aim right, the Mako swerves to the right?? If I aim backwards, the W key makes me go backwards!?!?

I'm having fun, though not nearly as much fun as I had with HZD.

I'm still chipping away at HZD. I just finished the part of the main quest where you save Meridian.

That's a good sized chip!

Did you see the quest where some guy wants you to look into a bunch of miners who have vanished? They vanished in a big, flat area with some exploding barrels scattered around in it. Hmmm. Geee. I wonder what might happen when you go to the center of that place. Games often telegraph difficult fights, but that was outright funny!

 

[Colif]

wonders why @ZedClampet didn't make a new one for last week?

 

[WoodenSaucer]

That's a good sized chip!

Did you see the quest where some guy wants you to look into a bunch of miners who have vanished? They vanished in a big, flat area with some exploding barrels scattered around in it. Hmmm. Geee. I wonder what might happen when you go to the center of that place. Games often telegraph difficult fights, but that was outright funny!

(Talking about HZD)

I think I did get that quest, but I don't remember for sure if I went and did it or not. I might have done it, but it seems like I postponed it because the level was too high.

After defeating Dervahl in Meridian, I'm back to the storyline about finding out more about Elisabet and the machine crisis. Just learned for the first time about Zero Dawn. I love that Lance Reddick is in the game. I'm also currently watching him in the old TV show, Fringe.

Edit: I just glanced at a walkthrough, and it looks like I'm probably at least 2/3 of the way done.

 

[Pifanjr]

I continued my Direfin campaign in Warhammer 2. I exterminated the empire factions and defeated two pirate armies, one which gave me the deck gunner regiment of renown, which is awesome.

The Lizardmen declared war on me and took one of my settlements, so I plundered and razed his capital, though I lost my level 15 hero during the siege, which is very painful.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

In Horizon Zero Dawn, I finally met my first full-powered Deathbringer with legs. Wow! It was tough, but I finally beat it. Not only that, but by the time I was finally done with it, I realized the best ways to go about defeating it. So if I come across any more, I should be able to take it down a lot easier and quicker. If I ever have to fight more than one at a time, I think I'm in trouble, though!