The Currently Playing & Random Game Thoughts Thread (March -2 to 5)

[Zloth]

Hey, it's PRACTICALLY March! Plus, that's the month right before April, when taxes are due. So, I really should get them done NOW because there's not much time left! Eeeesh, it's amazing how many terribly important things there are to do right away when it comes time to do taxes. I'm fairly certain the whole concept of 'spring cleaning' was invented as a way to avoid doing taxes for a few more hours.

I finished Subnautica:BZ last night but I wasn't real happy with the ending. I kinda sorta forgot to save the world before flying off. I'm not sure if I'll re-load and do that part or not.

 

[Johnway]

Hey, it's PRACTICALLY March! Plus, that's the month right before April, when taxes are due

urgh don't remind me. The national insurance is increasing and the gas bills are increasing as well...

I've given subterrain a break. Might as well be given up but i haven't uninstalled it. i'll try adding a mod to it and see what its like and whether it improves things. But for now i'm playing pillars of eternity now. Far more engaging compared to subterrain tbh.

 

[mainer]

i'm playing pillars of eternity now.

I loved that game, played through it twice. While there were a lot of overall improvement in POE2, I still like the main story line of the first POE the best.

Speaking of April and taxes, and ultility costs rising, and now AT&T is shutting down the 3G network tomorrow. I thought I'd be stuck having to buy a new phone, but fortunately my ancient Galaxy S5 is compatible with the 4G network (not 5G, but at least 4G is still active), so I saved a few hundred dollars there. The price of smart phones is stupidly high, I'd rather take that money and buy something sensible like a new GPU.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

So I mentioned that I started A Plague Tale, and so far, I'm really liking it. They really make you feel the game. It is very linear, which I don't mind. I like a good open world game, but I don't need every game to be open world. The thing I'm having to get used to is just how limited your controls are. You can't jump or hurdle anything unless it's something they want you to jump over. You can only do what they want you to do. But it's not as bad as it sounds, because you have to figure out what they want you to do. There is no map or navigation points. Another thing very different about the game for me is that the aim assist is way more magnetic than anything I've played before. I am playing the Xbox version, and I'm not used to playing on Xbox, so maybe it's different on there.

All of this isn't bad; it's just not what I'm used to. Overall, I'm really loving the game so far. I would definitely suggest anyone play it. And the graphics and audio production quality is top notch.

urgh don't remind me. The national insurance is increasing and the gas bills are increasing as well...

Where do you live that has national insurance?

 

[ZedClampet]

Where do you live that has national insurance?

Could be anywhere but America.

I'm playing Dying Light 2 and Total War Warhammer 3 this week. TWW3 is nice, but I don't know how much more of it I'm going to play before they release mod tools and the Immortal Empires campaign. There's only so many times I can play the Ursan campaign. It's the same thing over and over.

Loving Dying Light 2. Taking my time and exploring a lot, doing side things, especially at night, to get extra XP. I didn't do that in the first game because I was kind of afraid of being killed by zombies. Since then, I've played hundreds of hours of Vermintide 2, and these guys don't worry me at all anymore. I kill them by the dozens. Earlier tonight, I slid through a crack in a wall and found myself in a room with about 20 to 30 zombies. Didn't even occur to me until I was searching the bodies that maybe I should have turned around and run. Specials and mini-bosses? Not a big deal after a hundred battles with a Spawn of Chaos in the middle of a Skaven hoard.

 

[flashn00b]

Looking at the fact that I bought Kingdom Hearts III, the Final Fantasy VII remake and Chivalry 2, it recently occurred to me that my purchasing decisions on Epic seem to be fueled by "Screw Epic, but screw (x) even more", where (x) is the developer of a game on Steam that's competing against an Epic Exclusive product. I doubt anyone here will think that's the right way to look at things, but I don't think it's ideal to put up with the gripes I have with Bannerlord solely because Bannerlord's on Steam and Chivalry 2 isn't.

Conversely, i'm still pretty much annoyed with trying to play Japanese games on PC, and I unironically think that Tim Sweeney should be rewarded for funding PC ports of games that'd otherwise have a dismal chance of even having a PC port in the first place. I don't have high hopes for PlatinumGames' future PC support and if it takes EGS exclusivity to convince them to continue making PC ports of their non-Nintendo games, so be it.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Playing Elden Ring when I can, its great so far. Died about 10 times in an hour this morning in Stormveil Castle, just about found the next bonfire, or 'site of grace'.

Its sure as hell a Dark Souls game.

 

[Pifanjr]

TWW3 is nice, but I don't know how much more of it I'm going to play before they release mod tools and the Immortal Empires campaign. There's only so many times I can play the Ursan campaign. It's the same thing over and over.

That seems to be the general consensus, considering the game went from a peak of 160k concurrent players on launch day to a peak of 70k last weekend, which is quite a drop for a game that has been out for 1,5 weeks and should be good for, at the very least, a hundred hours of gameplay.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I'll be glad when the newness of Elden Ring wears off. It's all everyone is talking about on all of my forums, and I have zero interest in it.

 

[Sarafan]

I've spent less time playing computer games in the past week because of the situation behind the eastern border of my country. I temporarily focus heavily on reading and watching news. It's hard to believe that more or less 300 kilometers from the place where I live a regular war is fought!

Anyway I still find some time to play. I focus mostly on Horizon: Zero Dawn and C&C Tiberian Sun, although I must admit that I don't feel a big desire to play games in the last few days...

I loved that game, played through it twice. While there were a lot of overall improvement in POE2, I still like the main story line of the first POE the best.

Main story line of PoE2 is also great. I had more problems with the setting. I'm not a huge fan of pirate themes. This didn't stop me from enjoying the game in overall though. I consider it to be Obsidian's magnum opus. Probably the best isometric RPG ever made!

 

[mainer]

@Sarafan - I wish you luck with that situation, I can't even imagine it, the underlying levels of uncertainty and stress on a daily basis would be difficult to put aside.

I loved POE2 and it's story as well, there was just something about POE1's story that stayed with me, and I guess it felt a bit more like a Baldur's Gate game. Plus the 2 White Marches expansions were some of the best Obsidian has done.

It will be interesting to see how Obsidian's next game, Avowed, plays out, as it takes place in the same world as the POE games, but in first person.

 

[Brian Boru]

its great so far. Died about 10 times in an hour

Looks up definition of "great". Yep, what I thought.

Wonders… what would a terrible game look like for Kaamos

 

[Zloth]

I don't feel alive unless I'm dying at least once an hour!

 

[ZedClampet]

That seems to be the general consensus, considering the game went from a peak of 160k concurrent players on launch day to a peak of 70k last weekend, which is quite a drop for a game that has been out for 1,5 weeks and should be good for, at the very least, a hundred hours of gameplay.

I haven't really timed myself, but I think I could do a single-player campaign in a few hours.

This is going to end up being a fantastic game. It isn't there yet. They should have released Immortal Empires, mod support and the Chaos Dwarves on day 1. That would have helped tremendously. If they wait too long to release Immortal Empires, it could permanently damage the game's future.

They completely screwed up Troy. Troy could have been as popular as Warhammer 2. In many ways it's a superior game. But they launched it without the Mythos campaign and only on the Epic store, and they never addressed, even to this day, bugs with the AI (which is overall very good AI without the bugs). By the time they brought it to Steam and added the two extra campaigns (but with all the original AI bugs), it was too late. Everyone had moved on. Perhaps if they had fixed the AI, it could have built some momentum, but no one finds it amusing to have to declare a campaign a stalemate at turn 50 because of AI behavior. That doesn't happen every game, but once it starts happening, it never ends.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Looks up definition of "great". Yep, what I thought.

Wonders… what would a terrible game look like for Kaamos

It was kind of a joke, The dying a lot of the time leaves you just laughing, you expect it. And the way the community uses the very limited message system kind of becomes its own weird meme culture. There's a sense of community around it, and being able to see the ghosts of other players running around near you, and leaving pointers. I guess in a way a bit like an extension of what Journey did, except you can help or hinder each other.

There's 825000 concurrent players on Steam today who seem to like it and its 97/100 on Metacritic. Its not as unforgiving as some of the previous games because if you explore a bit you can grab enough upgrades and abilities to make things easier, if you don't enjoy the suffering.

Anyway I'll spare you all any more Elden Ring talk, it really is great though.

 

[Pifanjr]

Anyway I'll spare you all any more Elden Ring talk, it really is great though.

I don't think you should stop posting about Elden Ring. I like reading everyone's experiences, even for games I have no intention of playing myself.

 

[Sarafan]

I wish you luck with that situation, I can't even imagine it, the underlying levels of uncertainty and stress on a daily basis would be difficult to put aside.

Thankfully I'm not from Ukraine, but I'm close and we have hundreds of thousands refugees that arrive to our country searching for shelter. A real test for my country and the European Union.

I loved POE2 and it's story as well, there was just something about POE1's story that stayed with me, and I guess it felt a bit more like a Baldur's Gate game. Plus the 2 White Marches expansions were some of the best Obsidian has done.

I loved the story of the first game as well. I also have a feeling that the main quest line in PoE1 was more developed than in the second installment.

Spoiler

In PoE2 it was like "chase Eothas to point A", then "chase Eothas to point B", then "chase Eothas to point C" etc.

The quality of story was very good, but the game lacked more diversified quests. It's probably the only major disadvantage of PoE2.

It will be interesting to see how Obsidian's next game, Avowed, plays out, as it takes place in the same world as the POE games, but in first person.

I'm hoping for a real open world as in Fallout New Vegas. From what I've read seems that there are chances the game will be released near the end of this year. I doubt however they will want to confront Starfield, especially now, when both developers are owned by Microsoft.

 

[Withywarlock]

Just finished the prologue of Total War: Warhammer III (that's the third and final time they missed a trick calling it Total Warhammer), and I'm currently playing the Ogre Kingdoms. So far so good, especially the flavour behind the army, which is necessary when they're so obsessed with food. JRPGs are all about killing god, but it's something else when you get the chance to eat one.

 

[ZedClampet]

Just finished our nightly session of Dying Light 2. I'm really, really loving that game. The parkour is so fun, and I hate parkour. Plus, the story is non-stop, which I appreciate. There's one guy I very much want to kill, but the game won't let me at him. He's protected by cutscenes. That's pretty smart because I would have ruined the whole story by now, but I'd gladly start the game over if it would just let me beat his brains out.

Tonight's session was a bit of a power fantasy. We've done so much side stuff that we're quite a bit higher level than we should be at this point. We're going to raise the difficulty tomorrow. Right now we're on normal.

 

[Zloth]

JRPGs are all about killing god, but it's something else when you get the chance to eat one.

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[Zloth]

Made a little gallery showcasing the way the game lets you put in custom pictures (LOTS of them) and music

View: https://youtu.be/CTnFNONPnpg

 

[Pifanjr]

I just saw the Humble Bundle for Civilization and got tempted to buy it. €13.25 for both Civ 6 DLC is much cheaper than the €20 it has been on sale and it comes with a bunch of other Sid Meier games.

Then I remembered I'm not allowed to game on my work laptop any more and my wife already barely tolerates having to wait while we do our turns simultaneously, so hot seat isn't an option.

 

[ZedClampet]

Ugh, I finished my Kislev final battle in Warhammer 3 this morning, but while I was goofing around after the battle, the game crashed. I got the achievement for winning as Kislev, but when I log back in it's back at the final battle. I'm not doing that again, so my Kislev campaign is over (you can choose to continue on in sandbox mode after the final battle).

 

[Colif]

I am actually installing Sacred 2 again. I might even play it.
I saw a screen shot of today in 2009 and it was the game and it made me want to play it...
but I have to find the community patch (its on onedrive) and all my saves (also on Onedrive)
At least it won't load as 4k now I have a 1440p screen.

It probably won't be tonight as I still need 11gb of the game to load off Steam.

The first time I played it I was on Vista, hope it likes win 11.

 

[Colif]

Now to remember how to play it. I have a few characters over 100, but most are the same class. I cant remember what this guy was up to or who I was playing last. All the ones below lvl 4 only exist to give me bank space.