The Currently Playing & Random Game Thoughts Thread (5 June to 11 June)

[ZedClampet]

Welp, all things must come to an end, and Ghost Exiles is about at its end with me and my kids. We made so much progress this week that Madman difficulty is fairly easy. We'll still play it a bit and look forward to updates, but when there's practically zero challenge, the motivation to play just isn't very high.

Been enjoying Forza Horizon 5 now that I have a decent controller. Probably will play that a lot this week, along with a bunch of other games.

I'm feeling much better after having a rough week, so that's good.

So what you got?

 

[JC.Denton]

All the trailers on TV for Top Gun Maverick have got me hooked into playing Microsoft Flight Simulator again

 

[Johnway]

Playing through some games atm and on the handheld i'm play la mulana ex a 2d metroidvania with emphasis on puzzles more then combat. That said the difficulty is no joke, its brutally difficult as there is (so far) little to no way to heal yourself besides collecting souls (kill and collect enough souls to heal up) or going to the spring back at the start.

the combat /gameplay suffers. Its got that irratating mechanic where if you take damage you get thrown back and have long stun periods and yesterdays session in the lava caves meant i spent much of my time in just 3 rooms swimming in lava. The other annoying thing is that your attack range is pitifully short. I'm sure there is a way to improve this, but fighting bosses is near impossible to avoid damage with the whip. Lastly dickish level design, instakill traps, enemies that can pass through walls and you can't even crouch to dodge or attack low level enemies!

Yet, somehow this game is keeping me hooked, inch by inch i explore the world and its giving me the tools to just do enough to survive and i'm finding ways around the games faults. just like in dark souls, your rewarded in progress and sometimes its just inches feels like victory.

 

[Brian Boru]

@ZedClampet Good to hear you're feeling chipper again

I picked up a Far Cry 5 DLC which is on sale in Steam for under $4 until tomorrow—Hours of Darkness.

Set in Vietnam war, you're a US soldier whose chopper gets shot down. You escape, but 3 of your buddies are taken prisoner. The main mission is to escape—simply get to the extraction point as far as I know—which Steam comments suggest can be done in under 3 hours. It can be played co-op.

I'm about 3 hours in, and of course only maybe 1/4 of the way, if that. There are a bunch of side missions available, such as knock out AA guns, rescue your buddies, kill enemy officer, clear bunkers, etc. Plus the usual wandering patrols to engage, which I like to do.

I'm not mad about the world. It's all nighttime which I do not like—I have enough trouble seeing in daylight! Also, much of it is jungle with foliage and high growth obscuring any view, so there are none of the great vistas I enjoy in FC games. It's kinda open world, but not really—most of the jobs are in a fairly linear path towards the extraction.

It's stealth oriented, in that there are 4 perks you get for undetected kills, and which you lose once detected—then you can regain them again. They're not biggies—faster when crouched, quieter movement, tag enemies.
You can also get air strikes as a perk for completing quests—as long as you took down the local AA guns.

You play as Wendell, the Viet vet from FC5 who gave you the 'collect lighters' quest—and yes, there are lighters to collect No story, no trimmings, this is all pretty bare bones—which is ok with me since gameplay is by far my #1 priority.

When you rescue a buddy, he becomes like a Gun For Hire—but if he's killed, he stays dead. There's no shop or safe house, you get guns and ammo in the field—no shortage so far. I find the bow much better than the 2 sniper rifles I've tried, but that's probably just me.

There are some predators, I've met boars and some cat—panther maybe—so far, plus a croc in a river I crossed. There's no skinning or crafting, other than collecting plants to auto-make med kits. You loot enemies only when your ammo is below full, there's no money or chewing gum wrappers…

I'm enjoying it, it's limited but some FC fun—definitely worth it on sale. More info:

https://farcry.fandom.com/wiki/Hours_of_Darkness

 

[Sarafan]

Finally started playing Elden Ring. The game made a very good impression on me, although I have a feeling that the open world is a little too empty. Enemies and items are quite scarce if you compare it to Dark Souls series. Anyway I picked the Confessor class. I finished all three DS games with a quite standard warrior and wanted to try something a little different. I'm quite bad when it comes to perfectly timed dodging, so there are some difficulty problems, but I'll probably continue playing with this class. I hope my skills improve enough to be able to finish the game.

 

[ZedClampet]

Okay, something freaked me out. It's not really involving gaming, but it involves Audacity, audio recording and editing software that a lot of YouTubers use to record their voices. This is straight from The Twilight Zone.

Over Memorial Day weekend, my wife and her sisters took their mother to this tourist spot in Georgia, and my wife made a lot of video on her phone. She knows I have done a lot of video editing in the past, so she asked me to edit the videos together, cut boring stuff, etc. and then she would post it on Meta so her mom and sisters could watch.

There is a funny part of the video where one of her sisters sneaks up on the other one, who is spaced out sitting on a park bench. The sneaky sister grabs the other one and says, "Boo!" The scared sister jumps and her hand, which is holding a plastic cup with some drink in it, jerks up and throws whatever was in the cup all over her. She promptly yells, "F**K!"

So I had the audio in Audacity. I was going to make this portion of the video in slow motion, and place her curse word in while the liquid is flying through the air. You know how they do it on television, where they yell "Noooooooo!" and it's all drawn out and the pitch is changed? That's what I was going to do.

So I highlighted the curse word and went into the effects and changed the pitch and the tempo. Then I played it back. Plain as day, the recording says, "SH!!!!!!!!!!!!!T". I moved the pitch and tempo back to normal. play the audio, and she says the "F word". Change the pitch and tempo again, and she said the "S word".

That's some weird stuff right there. I might make a video of it. I assume some developer thought that was funny, but it's downright creepy when you aren't expecting it.

 

[Brian Boru]

DAAAAAAMMMMMMMNNNNNNNNNN!

 

[ZedClampet]

I bet that when YouTub started cracking down on cursing that Audacity engineers were working on word replacement

 

[ZedClampet]

You know how I love building things in survival games but am not very good at it? Well, I just don't have any feel for art design, but I still love to make designs and place them on my Forza cars. They all come out looking like a mess, but it's still one of my favorite things in these games.

 

[Frindis]

I'm exploring the Gothic 3 world with some mods. It looks pretty nice now, especially the flora/sunset/sunrise. The fighting and movements are still pretty bad and I experience some stuttering while exploring. It's not perfect, but it works. I enjoy looting, stealing, and making food/pots. There is a main quest, but I decided just to roam around and pick up the quests I want to do. I'm sure I'll jump into the main story at some time. Some of the characters are also pretty cool, like the swampweed smoking characters. The dungeons are not too shabby, some look very nice and others look pretty much the same, especially the Goblin caves. For anyone interested in trying out the mods I use, this is THE guide to follow for the best experience possible in Gothic 3:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5CY8TZxJbg

 

[mainer]

@Frindis - Thanks for that video, that's the best I've seen Gothic 3 ever look, and the instructions are great. I've been wanting to go back to Gothic 3, so that's something I'll definitely try out, so I bookmarked the video. How did that modded Skyrim game turn out for you?

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Been enjoying Forza Horizon 5 now that I have a decent controller. Probably will play that a lot this week, along with a bunch of other games.

I meant to reply to this earlier. FH5 is a really great game for when you don't want to get into something deep, and you just want some good mindless fun. My wife is pretty much a phone app game-only person, and even she loves it.

 

[ZedClampet]

I meant to reply to this earlier. FH5 is a really great game for when you don't want to get into something deep, and you just want some good mindless fun. My wife is pretty much a phone app game-only person, and even she loves it.

I love that there are so many different things to do. I played for hours this morning and only did a couple of races. I was working on getting my set-ups exactly the way I want them for each type of car for each class, decorating the cars and designing new courses. I created a great race that winds through the ancient pyramids at night. Looks beautiful when you are racing.

 

[Frindis]

@mainer You are welcome When it comes to the modded Skyrim I had some problems with the mods. I can't seem to run the game through Vortex, but I can run it through another loader location.

Spoiler: The error message I get

Spoiler: I also suddenly got some missing master

I'm sure there is an easy fix with moving locations and the such, but I don't really care for ironing that out yet, at least not before I see anything bad happening in the game. It seems it is not as automated as the modder stated or I just messed something up while installing. Most likely the latter. Right now it seems to work at least. Here is my #Amber T character from today's log in:

--------------------------------

Since I don't play Warzone anymore, I have been playing a lot of Fortnite with my nephews on a weekly basis and it's a lot of fun with the no-build mode. We win a lot and we also do fishing challenges - get the biggest fish or only use weapons in PvP that we get through fishing.

 

[ZedClampet]

Okay, well, I have to go to my room now. My wife said she wanted to take singing lessons, and I told her I would get the instructor a sympathy card.

 

[Ryzengang]

On the PC side of things, still pretty much just playing Dragon Quest XI. Having a great time with it and I've already put in close to 20 hours at this point. On the Switch I just start Mario + Rabbids, which is a surprisingly excellent turn-based tactics game. I have a decent collection of Switch games that I'm gonna start digging into this summer. With how low power it is, it's pretty ideal for me since I have no AC. I still haven't gotten to Metroid Dread, so I'll probably fire that one up soon as I've heard it's quite good.

Also, I did try starting Divinity: Original Sin 2 recently, and I'm a bit ambivalent on it. It's undoubtedly a really good game, but it just feels so perfect as a small group game vs playing solo. I would really love to get a small group together to run through a game.

 

[Zloth]

Playing Mechwarrior 5, I got dropped into an ice storm. I've seen them before in my modded game, but this time it was NASTY! I couldn't see squat!

See the friendly mech right under the green kite icon? That's a friendly that isn't far away at all! The mod also provides an infrared filter, which helps pick out mechs in all that grey, but then you can't see ground features at all.

Many mystical incantations were spoken on that mission, but the enemy was a having a hard time hitting the broad side of a skyscraper, too, so the city was saved.

That's some weird stuff right there. I might make a video of it. I assume some developer thought that was funny, but it's downright creepy when you aren't expecting it.

She said Laural.

 

[Pifanjr]

Played a bit more of Spiritfarer with my child and managed to unlock the rock destroyer upgrade, which opens up a new part of the map. Now I have to try to keep us there to harvest the new resources if we want to progress further.

 

[Brian Boru]

Finished Hours of Darkness, took ~9 hours going slow as I said above.

I find the bow much better than the 2 sniper rifles I've tried

Bow is great, esp with explosive arrows, but a suppressed sniper is needed in 2nd half when enemies get more numerous, with some heavies. It's a PITA that you have 3 main weapon slots, but only allowed to use 2 of 'em—I checked, it's not a bug, you only get the 3rd slot after completing. Really dumb unfriendly design.

some predators, I've met boars and some cat—panther maybe—so far, plus a croc

Very few of these, all told. Cats are panthers, ideal for spotting at nighttime Met no more boars, 2-3 cats in one area, few crocs in another area, that's it. So no need to watch out for wildlife like usual in FC games. There are more enemy dogs than anything, maybe a dozen.

Boring boss fight at the end left a sour taste—spawning waves of enemies and a few choppers. I avoid using machine guns or proximity explosives in shooters, but you might need 'em unless you're cool with the sub-genre switch—or not, I beat it first go without 'em despite being annoyed.

it's limited but some FC fun—definitely worth it on sale

I'll stick with that. No desire to replay it—but at least it's better for me than the other 2 FC5 DLCs. Fyi the only FC DLC I rate as a replay is FC4's Valley of the Yetis.

 

[Johnway]

Well still playing la mulana and yeah, sod any pretentions of not cheating, i'm getting a walkthrough to figure out what the hell i'm supposed to do and where to go. part of the problem is that not all of it is optional, you have to find secrets or solve cryptic puzzles to progress. Apparently it was a remaster of an old MSX game, so yes, there would be design/gameplay limitations. namely the BS kind. Needing to solve secrets to progress is perhaps the most obnoxious of the bunch.

Speaking of obnoxious, mafia 3. So far its been a mediocre experience but the possible bugs are starting to creep in now. One of the most common being unable to boot up the game unless i reinstall the redistribute files! its only happened once, but how many more times will it happen? We shall see...

Chiv2 still on the horizon, but not sure if i still want to get it. being multiplayer game i just can't dedicate that much time these days to pvp and getting gud. i have life commitments. Speaking of Chiv 2 my artwork is still being worked on but its getting to the point that i want to throw the bloody thing in the bin or redo large sections because things aren't working out...

 

[ZedClampet]

Started a new Total War Troy co-op campaign yesterday. I felt so good to get back to it. Right now I would put it at #1 in my list of Total War games.

The AI is already very aggressive, and I had some mods in there that had them even more jacked up. Hector declared war on us in turn 5 and was in my territory by turn 8 (I'm playing Ajax).

It's too early for me to have enough armies to defend myself and expand at the same time, but I have no choice but to do that, so I've had a couple of battles with my garrisons against 20 stack armies. Nothing sweeter than winning those (it's so early in the game, those 20 stacks weren't worth much, but we were far outnumbered).

 

[Brian Boru]

Civ2 still on the horizon

Whaaat?
I'm playing Civ6 at the moment, waiting for Civ7 to be announced, and you're—Oh, wait…

Chiv2

…Oops, missed that—who said it's ok to drop your Hs?

 

[Brian Boru]

@ZedClampet in case you haven't seen this:

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-best-co-op-games/

 

[Pifanjr]

@ZedClampet in case you haven't seen this:

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-best-co-op-games/

I'm missing ARPGs on this list. I'm not sure if there are any good recent ones though. Isn't Path of Exile still pretty popular and decent?

 

[Zloth]

The expected modpocalipse has occurred in Mechwarrior 5. Lots of broken mods and mass hatred directed at the developers for "forcing" them to update. Of course, it's Steam that governs how updates happen and Steam has an option to only update if the game is started. Also, PGI provides an easy way to stay on the old version via the "Beta" system. Those things involve not-venting, though, so they're out of the question for some people. (eye roll)

What didn't happen was much of a sale. Just 20% off the bundle for the game+DLC (not including the latest DLC). GoG has it a little cheaper with their summer sale.