The Currently Playing & Random Game Thoughts Thread (24 July to 30 July)

[Brian Boru]

Quarko

Oh sorry, my bad—his was the top review on Steam for me.

 

[ZedClampet]

Oh sorry, my bad—his was the top review on Steam for me.

Oh, I've owned this game for awhile. Got it on sale, and I just hadn't gotten around to trying it, so I haven't read any user reviews lately. They weren't particularly good when I bought it, but it sounded interesting enough for me to give it a shot.

Edit: Weird how Steam does their reviews. Quarko isn't showing up for me at all.

Good news, though. I got a message from the developer thanking me for the bug report and telling me he was fixing it now, and there is already an update.

 

[Ryzengang]

So yesterday I finally got around to starting Final Fantasy VII. I'm playing all the games in order (except FFXIV) for the first time, and I've reached perhaps the most praised title in the series. I've played for about 3 hours at this point, and my overall impression is positive. I like the characters a lot, and the story seems interesting enough (of course, it's still very early on), plus the soundtrack is quite strong. The visuals are pretty dire, but the core art direction is good. This is expected given the games age and that early 3D stuff largely looked like hot garbage. Mechanically this game feels pretty bad. Basically nothing feels good to do, down to the menu navigation. Traversal is pretty jank, and combat is a chore. Though it's worth noting that I don't like the turn-based combat of any of the early FF games, so this was something I expected. Characters and story are my primary motivators for playing RPGs, so I suspect I'll still enjoy FFVII despite disliking some important components.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Oh well then, you're a natural for the Anno series!

Those would take me a decade to play

 

[Brian Boru]

free browser games

These are all little guys, to fill in a few minutes whenever:

20 Quick Web Games to Play Online When You're Bored

Here are the best quick web games to play online when you're sat twiddling your thumbs and need to beat boredom.

www.makeuseof.com

 

[Brian Boru]

Behold our new Retro Gaming forum

Retro Gaming

A place to discuss all Retro games!

forums.pcgamer.com

 

[ZedClampet]

I decided I wanted to play Planet Coaster. Then I found out there are 376,247 mods in the workshop.

I'm gonna set records.

 

[Zloth]

So yesterday I finally got around to starting Final Fantasy VII.

My first screenshot from Remake was of the control setup. The one in the original game was SO annoying! You get used to it eventually, but jeeeeez! You can probably mod it to be better now, or maybe just use a controller.

Combat has just barely started so it's mostly just attack, attack, attack. Maybe toss a fire or a cure spell out there on occasion. It gets a lot better as you gain more materia so you've got more options.

 

[Shodan_]

Ready or Not is awesome but playing with randoms is a death sentence. You need to have a crew of people who aren't going to play this like Apex Legends. I spent two evenings hopping on public lobbies and haven't seen ONE success screen.

I did hook up with some slow players and am amassing a decent crew of strangers who aren't interested in rushing so that's a plus.

 

[ZedClampet]

Ready or Not is awesome but playing with randoms is a death sentence. You need to have a crew of people who aren't going to play this like Apex Legends. I spent two evenings hopping on public lobbies and haven't seen ONE success screen.

I did hook up with some slow players and am amassing a decent crew of strangers who aren't interested in rushing so that's a plus.

It's frustrating to fail because you are surrounded by literal idiots. In Vermintide 2, I often played by myself because of it. I can't tell you how many times we died as a group because one person ran off by themselves, got captured by a special, and then we had to chase them down to try to rescue them, usually during a hoard and bosses.

I've got Ready or Not wishlisted. Maybe they'll have the bots working well by the time I get around to it.

 

[Shodan_]

^^ I find the bots to be largely serviceable although some of the commands are strange. Like cover means go over there and cover ME from over there. It doesn't mean point your gun in whatever direction I'm pointing.

They will usually assess a room pretty good but you're responsible of creating the chaos you need to lower the enemy's morale so if you just enter and clear without any fireworks your Bots will not break ROEs, but very often end up having to shoot anyway because foes aren't impressed enough with them.

Pretty sure there's been a huge AI overhaul just this year. I started playing 3-4 days ago and have been having fun with it.

 

[Pifanjr]

I decided to try Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms on my phone after getting the free stuff from Epic. It's... not great. It honestly looks like the result of of a rushed group project from a group of students. Plays like it too, it's one of the worst mobile games I've seen.

These are all little guys, to fill in a few minutes whenever:

20 Quick Web Games to Play Online When You're Bored

Here are the best quick web games to play online when you're sat twiddling your thumbs and need to beat boredom.

www.makeuseof.com

Slime Volleyball is bringing back memories

I decided to just play on angband.live again. I wanted to play FrogComposband as a ring, but I still had a game as a vortex that I started probably around 2 years ago. Previously I hadn't wanted to continue that game but also did not want to throw away the progress I made. I decided to just bite the bullet and continue, then died half an hour later as I had no idea any more of what my vortex could handle in terms of enemies...
So then I started on the ring playthrough I had been wanting to play, which went really well! Found some decent spells to use, got a berserker as my ring-bearer which was extremely durable, I had a bunch of wands and staves, had absorbed quite a lot of jewellery and was having a lot of fun, right up until I did a quest that put me in a small room with a whole bunch of enemies that just kept confusing me. I had no confusion resistance yet, so I basically got stun-locked (confuse-locked?) and couldn't make it back to the exit.

I didn't feel like starting from scratch with a ring as it progresses very slowly, especially at the start, but I did like the gameplay mechanic of absorbing power from items, so I started a new game as a filthy rag, which absorbs the powers of armours instead of jewellery. Though so far I'm just scrounging for money to get some basic equipment.

Was excited to try Cities Skylines this morning, but had to abandon it pretty quickly. I just can't read the text. My vision tends to improve later in the day so I'll try it again.

I built some roads and then followed what I could make out of the tutorial and screwed those roads up. Found the bulldozer and deleted the mess, but it wouldn't let me remake the roads to where they would meet at the same elevation. There was always a huge bump in the road that wouldn't be unpassable.

I think changing road elevation is done with Page Up and Page Down.

 

[Ryzengang]

My first screenshot from Remake was of the control setup. The one in the original game was SO annoying! You get used to it eventually, but jeeeeez! You can probably mod it to be better now, or maybe just use a controller.

Combat has just barely started so it's mostly just attack, attack, attack. Maybe toss a fire or a cure spell out there on occasion. It gets a lot better as you gain more materia so you've got more options.

Yea... the control setup is less than ideal. I moved to controller and it is definitely better, but it still doesn't feel great. You can only navigate menus with the stick and not the d-pad. Further, the sensitivity doesn't feel right and the responsiveness is quite poor.

 

[ZedClampet]

I almost accidentally spent $129 on a $35 mouse. I knew which one I wanted and just clicked on it and was hovering over the "buy now" button on Amazon when I noticed the price. Apparently the mouse has been discontinued so the price has skyrocketed on the remaining stock. There's a new version for $45 I'm going to try.

I don't think the mouse will solve my problems. My cursed gaming laptop has electrical/signal problems, but the Sensei smoothed those out before.

 

[SleepingDog]

Picked up a digital copy of "Firewatch" in the last big GOG sale. Started it a few nights ago and was pleasantly surprised. Mind you I nearly gave up when I realised how useless I was with a compass. Got the "Good First Day" achievement which 81% of people reach. I wonder what happen to the other 19% - was the compass too much of a challenge or did they realise they didn't like the game?

My paper copy of PC Gamer arrived a week or so ago. Previews on "Starfield" (RPG space opera), and "Old Skies" (point-and click adventure) looked good. A few others may be of interest. "The Invincible" (exploring a planet to discover what happen to the previous ship - mystery adventure?) and "The Alters" from 11 Bit Studios which looks strange but maybe ok. More research needed.

 

[Johnway]

almost finished return of the obra dinn. just the last 5 or 6 people to figure out what happened.

My problem? its the escape chapter these people didn't "die" in the event. What happened to them? how the hell am i supposed to bloody know? I might have to see if i can unlock the bargain chapter and hopefully get more pieces of the story and figure out what happened to them.

Failing that i'm going to just randomly add entries till something sticks. Worked up to this point when i couldn't figure out how to differentiate certain people. Worst case scenario i'll just look it up.

 

[ZedClampet]

Picked up a digital copy of "Firewatch" in the last big GOG sale. Started it a few nights ago and was pleasantly surprised. Mind you I nearly gave up when I realised how useless I was with a compass. Got the "Good First Day" achievement which 81% of people reach. I wonder what happen to the other 19% - was the compass too much of a challenge or did they realise they didn't like the game?

Really enjoyed Firewatch. I may have to replay that. If I remember right, didn't all those folks go to work for Valve? Guess they were tired of making games

 

[Brian Boru]

Firewatch … "Good First Day" achievement which 81% of people reach

One of my fav indie games, love the art style and there's something about the atmosphere… apart from it being smoky I did my usual wandering around, took 3x to complete it—my 13h v avg 4.6h.

Fyi 58% have the game finished achievement, so you should have a good chance of getting there after passing the first day

didn't all those folks go to work for Valve?

Yeah, seems they asked Valve to buy them—both companies in same town, so probably lots of informal contact there—after which some worked on HL Alyx, some on DotA, some on Steam…

 

[Frindis]

Throwing in a tip for those with a lot of games: Use a random word generator, then use a number generator for that letter for example D and a number between 1-30. Play the game on a 30-minute timer or less and then rinse and repeat. I found it to be a fun way to go through some games that are just collecting dust in the library.

 

[ZedClampet]

Depressing OT: The news is getting worse and worse. When China makes good on its threats and starts shooting at American planes, I'm buying the best PC I can find because there won't be anymore for a long, long time.

 

[ZedClampet]

Depressing OT: The news is getting worse and worse. When China makes good on its threats and starts shooting at American planes, I'm buying the best PC I can find because there won't be anymore for a long, long time.

That wouldn't be my primary concern, of course. That was just my clumsy way of tying the news to PC gaming lol

 

[Pifanjr]

I started a new game as a filthy rag, which absorbs the powers of armours instead of jewellery. Though so far I'm just scrounging for money to get some basic equipment.

This might be the slowest run I've done so far. I think I've only found three pieces of equipment I could absorb that had any enchantments besides a bonus to armour. This race has no other abilities than to absorb armour, it can't even wield weapons, so I'm feeling severely underpowered. Can't really go to higher level areas to get better loot because I don't have the resistances to survive there, but to get the resistances I need better loot.

So I've just been leveling, which gives more health, and getting my armour bonus up, so I can hopefully survive long enough in the higher level areas to nab some better armour. I did find rods and staves to detect treasures and monsters and map my surroundings, so I'm not just going in blind. I just need a staff of teleportation to get away if I do get confused to avoid being confuse-locked again.

 

[Brian Boru]

it can't even wield weapons

With the Filthy Rag race, you don't need weapons, you just rub the bad guys out. If you find the WD40 loot, you're home and hosed.

avoid being confuse-locked

Please let us know if you crack it, I need a lot of help with that.

 

[ZedClampet]

Just deleted a completely confusing and inaccurate post due to my addled brain, but played Fall Guys and my son won 4 times and my daughter won 1. I didn't win, but actually won the first time I played ages ago when it first came out and I was at my nephew's house. It's not really something I would play by myself, but it's fun enough with the kids.

 

[ZedClampet]

Just deleted a completely confusing and inaccurate post due to my addled brain, but played Fall Guys and my son won 4 times and my daughter won 1. I didn't win, but actually won the first time I played ages ago when it first came out and I was at my nephew's house. It's not really something I would play by myself, but it's fun enough with the kids.

I came back downstairs, and Guido was cheering. He's won 3 more times tonight. *eye roll*