The Currently Playing & Random Game Thoughts Thread (March 6 to 12)

[WoodenSaucer]

I'm about halfway through A Plague Tale right now, and it's a really great game. It's very linear, but it's a great game. The part I'm in right now reminds me a lot of Thief 2014, which is one of my favorite games. I'm really glad I found this game.

 

[Ryzengang]

I'm about halfway through A Plague Tale right now, and it's a really great game. It's very linear, but it's a great game. The part I'm in right now reminds me a lot of Thief 2014, which is one of my favorite games. I'm really glad I found this game.

I really enjoyed it as well. Honestly, A Plague Tale: Requiem is pretty high on my list of anticipated games at this point. I'm interested to see what they can cook up in a sequel.

 

[Zloth]

I had to look up what 10,994m was about. Yikes. Even the prawn suit couldn't go that deep.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I decided to jump back in where I left off with my Halo Reach Heroic playthrough. Afterwards I plan to play the whole Master Chief Collection on Legendary. I know it will likely be harder than Infinite on Legendary, but I hope having played Infinite with no upgrades and grapple only will better prepare me. It's my first time trying the others on Legendary.

For now though, even with the graphics and controls of Reach being better than everything prior, it's making me realize all the more that Infinite is clearly the best game in the series.

 

[DXCHASE]

I bought the boomer shooter humble pack and it was probably one of the best bundles they've had. Got a couple of ones i had on my wishlist for a while now so that was nice. Love those games.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I really enjoyed it as well. Honestly, A Plague Tale: Requiem is pretty high on my list of anticipated games at this point. I'm interested to see what they can cook up in a sequel.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Being that I have Game Pass, I was really happy to see it's going to be on there at launch.

I decided to jump back in where I left off with my Halo Reach Heroic playthrough. Afterwards I plan to play the whole Master Chief Collection on Legendary. I know it will likely be harder than Infinite on Legendary, but I hope having played Infinite with no upgrades and grapple only will better prepare me. It's my first time trying the others on Legendary.

For now though, even with the graphics and controls of Reach being better than everything prior, it's making me realize all the more that Infinite is clearly the best game in the series.

Haha. I don't punish myself with Heroic or Legendary. But Reach is one awesome game. I haven't tried Infinite yet, but I'd say that Reach is probably technically the best Halo game before it. Personally, my favorite from a story perspective is Combat Evolved because all of the concepts are new and fresh, and you have no idea what's coming (at least when it first came out). But from a graphics/gameplay perspective, Reach is the better game.

Sometime I'll try Infinite, but I'll probably work on some of MCC first. That's going to be slow going for me, though.

 

[ZedClampet]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but tomorrow we are starting Dying Light 2 over. We've consistently made the wrong decisions in the story when we were under pressure to decide what to do. It's a great game so no big deal. We just get more playtime.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Haha. I don't punish myself with Heroic or Legendary. But Reach is one awesome game. I haven't tried Infinite yet, but I'd say that Reach is probably technically the best Halo game before it. Personally, my favorite from a story perspective is Combat Evolved because all of the concepts are new and fresh, and you have no idea what's coming (at least when it first came out). But from a graphics/gameplay perspective, Reach is the better game.

Sometime I'll try Infinite, but I'll probably work on some of MCC first. That's going to be slow going for me, though.

Yeah I'll probably have flashbacks of this post when I'm dodging the constant barrage of grenades in the corridors of the final part of Combat Evolved on Legendary. It will no doubt be stressfull.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but tomorrow we are starting Dying Light 2 over. We've consistently made the wrong decisions in the story when we were under pressure to decide what to do. It's a great game so no big deal. We just get more playtime.

Sorry if I missed you already saying it, but who are you playing with? I'm actually more curious at this point how my perception of the game will compare to that of others, than my perception of the game itself. I keep thinking about that "box of chocolates" line in Forest Gump.

 

[ZedClampet]

Sorry if I missed you already saying it, but who are you playing with? I'm actually more curious at this point how my perception of the game will compare to that of others, than my perception of the game itself. I keep thinking about that "box of chocolates" line in Forest Gump.

Playing with my son. We decided not to start over, but when we finish this game, we're going to play on his save file and choose different options. Best I can tell, we are about half-way through now and having a blast. I looked at mods yesterday for a second playthrough, but didn't really see anything I was interested in. There are some funny ones, but I wouldn't want them installed for a whole playthrough, like the one that turns all the zombies into this NPC that everyone hates so you can kill him over and over again lol

In Total War Warhammer 3 news, we have a co-op Kislev campaign going. My son decided he didn't want to go into the portals, so we started a new game where I'm going to be the one who does that. I also have solo Ogre and Cathay games going. There's still no news on when any of the updates people are clamoring for will come out. They seem to be concentrating on bugs at the moment, particularly why you crash whenever you alt-tab.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I noticed Ghostrunner a week ago got a DLC called Project Hel where you play as Hel, the assassin robot. You don't have grappling ability, but you can do longer air dashes and a super leap, so I'm curious to try it. Apparently in this parallel campaign, Hel is angry at her creator Mara, so she's not all bad I guess.

 

[dannyjay]

I’m really looking forward to Evil West, Steel Rising, Little Devil Inside, Atomic Heart,Plague Tale 2,Elden Ring (preordered)Horizon Zero Dawn (owned but waiting to play after I finish Elden Ring). Seems like it’s going to be a good year!

 

[Johnway]

my quest in pillars of eternity continues! so far i'm just plodding around in act 2 with an ever increasing list of tasks. Some of the quests are relatively straight forward, other ones i've pushed to the later to do pile. Especially when it comes to tough bosses or when i'm outnumbered 2 to 1.

Speaking of combat, i still haven't got into the hang of it and i doubt i truly will to tbh. But i'm playing on normal so i should be ok...

 

[Volley]

Currently on Cyberpunk 2077 1.5, my third playthrough since Dec 2020 release. I love this game. Steam says I have 470 hours in the game, and has now beat Civilization V as my most played Steam game. Patch improved a lot of things, added some new features, but also messed up performance in the map and UI after being in-game for a few hours, it can chop out quite a bit in some play sessions, strangely enough it doesn't seem to occur every time.

Throwing Knives are an absolute joy to use, and the lighting on the motorcycles or headlights on vehicles is fantastic. Night City has never looked so good, especially during sandstorms or heavy rain storms via Ray Tracing.

Other than that World of Warcraft patch 9.2 currently, playing it about as casually as it gets only logging in a handful of times per week, I did the new Darkmoon Faire stuff already, my guild hopes to start raiding Normal soon but no biggie if not enough log in, most are waiting for new expansion or what's next. The game needs big changes anyway, this is Warcraft far removed from what was Reign of Chaos and the Frozen Throne 20 years ago.

 

[Pifanjr]

I continued the head-to-head campaign in Warhammer 2 two days ago with my friend, playing as Settra and Yvresse respectively. I unlocked my third army right before we stopped playing last time, which has come in handy. It's a good thing that Tomb King units don't cost any money, so I was able to build up quickly and take back two of the settlements I lost and defeat two rogue armies that were being a menace. My friend controlled one of the rogue armies, which had me worried, but luckily my third army consisting entirely of expendable units was able to reinforce my main army and it kept his units occupied long enough for the main army to actually kill his army.

I think I lost about half of the army, but I needed to replace the third army generic lord with a unique lord I just unlocked, so I would've disbanded all those units anyway.

I've now unlocked the Warsphinx mount for Settra and his army now has mostly high tier units. I just want to buy the Cask of Souls before I try the two quest battles I've unlocked for Settra, but I keep forgetting about it every time I get some money and spend it on buildings instead.

 

[ZedClampet]

I continued the head-to-head campaign in Warhammer 2 two days ago with my friend,....

We haven't played the main campaign of 3 in head-to-head yet, but one interesting change to 3 is that you can make extremely good garrisons, even in minor settlements. Head-to-head, if both players built the defensive structures, you'd have a lot of very close battles to take each other's settlements, not to mention the tower defense mechanisms you can use if you are defending.

I have a feeling head-to-head is going to feel very different, though, because if both players know what they are doing, they'll just ignore each other. It will just come down to who successfully does the portals the fastest. Or, if you manage your finances correctly, you might be able to decimate the other player while you are both in the portal.

 

[Pifanjr]

I have a feeling head-to-head is going to feel very different, though, because if both players know what they are doing, they'll just ignore each other. It will just come down to who successfully does the portals the fastest. Or, if you manage your finances correctly, you might be able to decimate the other player while you are both in the portal.

We're mostly playing head-to-head so we can do some battles with a human controlling the AI, not to actually try to defeat each other. We've done several battles where we each control the same army as well.

I controlled a Brittonian garrison against his army at some point. It actually had a lord in it with an army as well, so I think I had about 30 units. I thought I could do a better job than the AI, but I vastly underestimated his troops and overestimated mine. Brittonian infantry do basically no damage against high tier High Elf infantry. And his lord and hero had full life at the end despite being the first to climb the walls and getting 200+ kills each, because he had a healing spell. The only thing I succeeded at was sallying out with 3 units of cavalry, evading his infantry and taking out 2 of the 4 Eagle Bolt Throwers.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I'm still playing A Plague Tale, but I also started a new game of Halo: Combat Evolved in MCC. I'm pretty slow at gaming. I'm trying to play A Plague Tale when my youngest son is around, because he likes to watch it. So I started Halo for when he's not around.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Elden Ring still and probably for quite a while. I'm exploring every corner of the maps and trying to find everything I can without referring to guides. There's a lot, and so much unique and interesting stuff. Even the things that are repeated in the world have surprises and differences, not much is straight up copied. Theres also extra incentive to get it all because it really helps to have the highest level character and weapons possible.

Spoiler

There's also a giant talking tortoise pope, opera singing harpies, giant lobsters, and tons of other weirdness.

Just got into Raya Lucaria academy after exploring most of Liurna, so heading toward the next big story boss I think. Really great game, beautiful world too.

 

[Frindis]

As with @Kaamos_Llama I'm also enjoying Elden Ring. Been using a lot of my time just exploring as much as I can do. Not taking the first boss, that will have to wait. I'm getting my hands on cookbooks pages and some items I have no clue about how to use. I got a lot of materials from the normal to exceedingly rare, so when I have finished hoarding up, I guess it will be time to make some fun out of it when I get more serious about defeating them bosses.

I did get into a fight with a mini-boss named Patches. Hilarious fight, not giving out any spoilers, but I love random encounters like that. If you meet Patches, say hello to him from meSpeaking of random encounters the NPC invasions are a thing in Elden Ring also and had my first fight a couple of days back. Love it!

Also play a lot of PUBG. The Glider in PUBG is a total blast, so I am focusing a lot of my time on getting good at flying and using it tactically. New season coming soon with battle pass and also some new items, so I am excited. Seems the good'ol PUBG feeling is coming back, pumping chicken wins through my veins! For anyone playing: Fully kitted Vector and Scar are my favorite weapons to use.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

@Frindis Patches was pretty funny

Spoiler

I also spared him

I only just started really dipping more into crafting, in previous games you mostly stored up your items to use on bosses but I think due to the amount of materials in the world now, you can probably be a bit more liberal with them to help yourself along.

Need to take some more screenies for the screenshot thread too, where I am now is amazing from almost every angle.

 

[Ryzengang]

I've been mostly playing Risk of Rain 2 and Final Fantasy 14. FF14 has really grabbed me and I'm having a great time with it. The story is great and the soundtrack is one of my favorite video game soundtracks ever, so much so that I pre-ordered the second wave of the vinyl box (I have a decent vinyl collection, it's a bit of a side hobby). Also, I did manage to get in about an hour of God of War this week, so I should be able to slowly finish that over time.

 

[ZedClampet]

I needed someone to hold the rear in the last wave of the Final Battle while the rest of my army dealt with the massive army in front. Greasus Goldtooth, my faction leader, is someone who the enemy will always target if the opportunity arises. He did quite well, survived to the end, and my army never got attacked in the rear. This screenshot was right before the battle ended (once you kill the army charging from the other direction, it ends). Goldtooth is the big smiling fella in the middle with the green health bar.

 

[Zloth]

I'm cruising along on Age of Wonders: Planetfall. It's been good fun all around, though I'm still learning details about how to play.

Distant Worlds 2 is out and appears to be selling well, with 'mostly positive' reviews. That's good news for me! It can stay on my wish list.

 

[Zloth]

Jeez, the 4X genre sure is paltry outside of Civilization and Stellaris. Age of Wonders: Plantefall is a really good game! Yet only a few hundred people are playing right now (as opposed to several thousand in Civ games and Stellaris), despite just having had a sale.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Other Paradox games look relatively busy, although a way off Civ 5/6 combined. Last 30 days 50k peak on Crusader Kings 3 and about the same in Hearts of Iron 4 according to Steam Charts, half that in EU IV. Imperator Rome and Victoria are pretty dead though.

Not sure how much crossover there is considering Paradox games are RTWP rather than turn based, but I'd imagine some. Still 4x is a obviously a niche compared to your CS's and FN's.