whatchu playing now

you know the drill. post what you are currently playing. add whatever else you goddamn please ;-)

bioshock inf 2nd dlc - a bit of a let down, elizabeth's story is so muddled and confusing.
orcs must die - this game is pretty fun!

I (and, ostensibly, my girlfriend, who mostly only plays the pinball stuff I bought for her) just bought a PS3 a couple of months ago, which I'm completely new to aside from crashing helicopters into gas stations in GTA IV at my brother's. So I've been excitedly hoarding games, since this seems to be the sweet spot between when previous-gen system come way down in price and when they go out of print and skyrocket. But I'm trying to be restrictive in my playing so that I don't play eight million things at once and fail to fully appreciate the varied experiences.

Althought I was completely put-off by it at first (complicated tutorials maybe shouldn't take place in the middle of combat under cover of darkness), probably 75% of my game playing time of late has been devoted to Just Cause 2. So much addictive fun, and great for brief, post-work mayhem sessions. Strangely haven't read or heard a whole lot about it outside of ILG threads, so thanks for that, y'all. Prior to that, I was mostly sucked into Skyrim, which initially impressed and then subsequently overwhelmed me with its breadth. I mean, I'm level 25-ish and realized recently that I'd completed somewhere pretty far south of 10% of the core game, so it feels like a thing that could just go on forever. I'll return to it someday when I'm ready to really dig in.

Other stuff in my current rotation:
Fez (not hugely into platformers but I'm really digging it; music and design and use of color are aces)
Minecraft (kinda don't know exactly what to do with it yet, but it's cool to mess around with)
Arkham Asylum (not crazy about the combat, but maybe I'm just not used to it yet; the beginning of the Scarecrow encounter was amazing)
Where Is My Heart? (cute, cool concept, good for short bursts)
Portal (just started this...the rest of the Orange Box is backburnered for the time being)
Deadly Premonition (not terribly far into it; definitely bizarre as hell but I'm undecided just yet as to whether it's my kind of bizarre)
Prototype (love it to bits; I think I'm near the end so I've been sitting on it for a little while to prolong the love...although I do already have the sequel)
Resident Evil 3 (revisiting after 15 years; controls are for shit but I'm building up anticipation to RE4)
Walking Dead (only played the first episode thus far but it was great and I'm looking forward to more)

I also have a ton of stuff that I've played <15 minutes of (The Saboteur, Tomb Raider reboot, Marvel Ultimate Alliance) that I'm looking forward to jumping into more fully soon.

Kinda want to make a (sadly & ridiculously long) list of the stuff I've acquired and get recommendations of what to tackle next.

MPQ and GTA5, exclusively, for ages now. Very very reluctant to start a new game atm

rotation of dark souls 2 on ps3 and might & magic X and magic online on the laptop. nearly done with mmx and think i am going to finally play monaco. nearly done with ds2 but just going to keep playing it anyway.

diablo 3 on pc! oh nooo

I thought of something else I played recently: WSOP Full House Pro poker on xbla.

I am in a bad place. ;-)

GTA5 in the evenings, still searching for those hidden items
Or Lego City Undercover on occasions.

Any other time I struggle to find time or energy to play anything else right now, I'm trying to design and develop my own games and I find that a struggle in itself.

Games that I *should* be playing anyway...

Pinball FX, really really should fire this up more often
Rayman, not even installed this yet
Red Dead Redemption (still not bothered to attempt the final mission)
Fallout3, embarrassingly never finished this either
Fuel, after having to purchase new PS3 I'll have to start all over again.
Just Cause 2, dropped off the radar a bit, dip into every now and again to get that 100% status
Minecraft/FTB, my only reason for not playing this more often is its just too daunting. In terms of time wasting goes this is the mother of all. FTB packs have basically kicked this game into mind blowing status imo.

(With the exceptions of Pinball and Rayman you might notice a distinct pattern in the games I like)

picked up gta 5 again just to round off the epsilon missions. i was convinced there would be a big heist at the end of all of it, because ripping off the scientologists seemed to make sense and how else would i ever get the cash to buy the golf course etc. so the only one getting ripped off was me :( officially done with this game.

also just finished xcom enemy unknown which i loved to bits. besides it was just long enough to keep my interest through the whole thing.

not really sure what to go with next. ps+ gave me lots of options. i'll probably get going on tomb raider, as soon as i stop struggling to like pes2014.

dayZ and nothing but dayZ. the slow small little updates that come out every couple of weeks just make it that little bit more appealing every day. i try not to think that's there's no real goal or 'end' to it.

Dude, FRACT OSC is out. It's fun, but giving me a lot of flashbacks to Myst, due to heavy puzzles with occasional symbolic language hints. You're exploring this long abandoned machine world and you restoring operation to a giant synthesizer that you wander around in.

SMT4, the soundtrack for this game is so good, running around a post-apocalyptic Tokyo to synthy krautrock <3 http://youtu.be/SG_gB4kb2oA

Oh, FRACT sounds great, might have to grab that.

The only thing I'm playing at the moment is Letter Quest on my ipod. It's quite good but nothing mindblowing.

portal 2 (3rd time), ni no kuni, assassins creed 4, dork souls

FTL and could be on this for a while now that I feel like I finally understand how to play it

im obsessed

so many ships still to unlock and haven't even touched advanced mode...

I've been playing Kingdom Of Amalur, a game that apparently lost the taxpayers of Rhode Island $75m, recently. I kind of hate myself as it's another massive Skyrim-style time sink, but it's quite good fun.

what IS advanced mode

i havent even begun boarding as a tactic yet

sorry "advanced edition"

As a reminder, FTL: Advanced Edition is a free content expansion for FTL. All current (and future) customers will receive this update regardless of where they purchased it. Prior to release, we will post detailed instructions on how to get the update from whatever digital vendor you originally purchased FTL.

http://www.ftlgame.com/?page_id=106

New systems (clone bay??), new race, new ships, just lots more stuff, and it was released as a free sort of patch. It's a toggle option when you start a game, you can choose standard or advanced.

I've been playing Kingdom Of Amalur, a game that apparently lost the taxpayers of Rhode Island $75m
― Yuri Bashment (ShariVari), Thursday, April 24, 2014 3:45 PM

ah yes the curt schilling rpg

oh yeah i'm playing dragon's dogma. i've given up on it twice before so i'm determined to finish it this time. the controls are lacking but it has some of the best gfx i've seen in an rpg. makes dark souls 2 look like shit by comparison anyway.

http://cdn.destructoid.com//ul/266639-curt-shilling.jpg

dragon's dogma was good fun, at its best early before everything becomes too easy, so i encourage you to not progress the story at all until you have been everywhere. one of the best and most unique things it has are the giant wandering monsters that really felt like epic fights, at least until my gang quickly got OP'd. helps if you resist the temptation of the broken pawns that are available early.

infinity wars + starbound

helps if you resist the temptation of the broken pawns that are available early.
― Roberto Spiralli, Thursday, April 24, 2014 4:29 PM

what are the broken pawns. i've just been using the free low level ones and trading them in every so often. groups of bandits on the roads are still kicking my butt

i got one real early with an ordinary woman's name, Karen i am fairly sure, and her owner had limited her level but she had maxed-out, late game rare gear and was a total powerhouse

whatever the fighter class is. i got another midway thru with a more forgettable fantasyish name, also a female fighter.

Dammit, Fract really _is_ like myst. I can't find the symbolic to detangle the tune I'm supposed to play to solve the final puzzle in one of the areas.

Final Fantasy - NES
Assassin's Creed IV - PC
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX - PC
Castlevania: Rond of Blood - T16
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - PSX
Metal Gear Solid - PSX
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance - PC
Metal Gear Solid 2 - PC

you livin' the life, Adam, respect

finished saints row 4
tried diablo 3 again - meh so spammy
maybe back to metro 2033

"Finished" Portal and Fez, loved both. Seems like there's still aftergame stuff for me to do, which is cool.

I'm a good way into the first God of War, and I can't be sure but I think I might kinda hate it. The brutal waves of super tough enemies are awesome, and some of the puzzles are pretty good, but creating Indiana Jones-esque deathtraps with a shitty camera and sketchy controls was the fucking worst idea ever. I've wasted so much of my playtime on failing to kill everything onscreen within a set time before falling to my death or being crushed or sliced up by shit that I can barely see in front of me that it's kinda become a chore for me to continue. I might just be hating the PS2-ness of it, though.

I've been surprisingly digging a lot of arcade-y stuff that I've gotten cheap from PSN recently. Super Stardust and Wipeout took me a little while to get used to but they're amazing once I'm in the zone. Just got Retro/Grade, which I haven't played much but which has an awesome conceit (basically a rhythm game disguised as a shooter that runs in reverse). The Space Invaders update also seems like good value.

This weekend, I hit 50% completion and the 100 hour mark near-simultaneously on Just Cause 2. Clearing a few areas in the game has become such a reliably perfect way to decompress at the end of the day.

kotor + bg2

getting myself psyched + ready for pillars of eternity i guess

xps I played GoW 1 for the first time... a year ago? Maybe two? Felt some of the same frustrations as you, but I'm still planning to truck on through to the others at some point. I can see how it all would've been far more impressive back in 2006, but some of those levels and dungeons are awfully designed.

What build you going for in KOTOR, Mordy?

i guess soldier guardian. tbh i'm kinda more interested in my bg2 half-elf cleric/ranger build (so OP apparently it's ppl's fave for soloing the game). (thought about playing a wild mage too.)

Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III

So BKIII is the Japanese version of SOR3 and it is WAY easier. This does not mean it is easy though, it only means it is possible to get through stage 1 without using a continue. American version of Streets of Rage 3 is one of the more difficult games I've ever played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VWsJPJ19DA

That level with the bulldozer is all-time unfair.

all that and he's beat by a girder

i love the energy meter for 'wall'.

i guess i only played Streets of Rage 1 & 2.

man why doesn't axel just jump over the damn walls

sor3 is weird. it seems like it admits to tactics then it doesn't really.

I think after you get past the stage where you are fighting kangaroos and evil dominatrix clowns they just figured they could get away w that.

Played 2-player Hyperstone Heist for the Genesis last night. Got to Super Shredder and then we died and we were out of continues! The music in that game is incredible. Orchestrated speed metal.

i'm still playing bg2.

eu4 always with the eu4. genovese colonial empire.

Haven't played it myself, but really enjoying watching people play "The Roottrees Are Dead" on Steam. This is a Golden Idol/Obra Dinn-esque puzzle game about genealogy.

i played that one, it was okay but felt a little dry without the cool staging and "on-site" investigation of an obra dinn or golden idol

I enjoyed citizen sleeper original, but if you are like me and only have patience for like max two playthroughs of games involving multiple playthroughs/multiple endings, then yeah best to try it when it's on a good sale (I played it on Game Pass)

thank goodness you're here ... what a delight

anyone gone in on kingdom come: deliverance 2 yet? I am seeing reviews saying it's amazing and other ones saying it's absolutely terrible. tho most of the bad ones are user reviews. same thing happened with black myth: wukong and was equally confusing.

i haven't, and i'm interested in Wukong especially, but i feel like user reviews are a more poisoned well than ever because it's essentially a forum for MAGAs, incels and other assorted lunatics. professional reviewers are subject to their own structural bullshit but at least you know how that bullshit works

yeah, same, it all seems kind of insane, even if not overtly maga etc it feels corrupt or false.

it is still kinda confusing when you read a review like 'this game is terrible, so many bugs, i quit after five hours' - gives you pause before shelling out fifty quid.

yeah tbf i almost never buy stuff full price and if i'm remotely unsure i'd try and get a demo or something. there's a lot of "Chinese devs are terrible/awesome" fights online right now i think

Kingdom Come is Czech tho i think. there was a lot of RETVRN shit around the first one. i kind of fancy it but i mix it up with Mount and Blade in my head which is no fun so i dunno.

yeah i mean if it can deliver on the promise of... wandering around medieval europe killing people and getting into trouble then it would be a win. it does look v nice in the videos etc.

finished Stellar Blade, a game I didn't like to begin with but really grew to love (despite the creepy sexdoll character models)
it's basically a super high definition PS3 game, lots of frustrating invisible walls, platforming is kinda bad etc. but ... when it opens up it turns into a Nier type adventure, a series it seems heavily influenced by. and I love Nier, running around exploring areas while beautiful melancholy music plays in the background is like catnip to me, and the game kept switching things up so I never got bored.

got a few weeks until my most anticipated games start hitting (Xenoblade X and Clair Obscur), maybe time to catch up on all the indies I've missed.

I bought Chaos;Child a while ago and have just started getting hooked. Pretty standard VN I guess but I enjoy the cut of its jib

the kingdom come deliverance dude is one of those eurotrash maga troll types, lots of "up yours woke moralists" shit while swishing a goblet of wine and twirling his waxed mustache... OG gamergate guy

Yeah fuck that shit

Yeah I guess the bad reviews are because they put in a black character and same sex relationships?

There was a misguided-seeming Rockpapershotgun article laughing at how the guy was paying the price for making a deal with the devil before and it's like...he's on the devil's side, putting that stuff in the second game to make it sell better was the agonising moral compromise for him

It feels like even the outlets that were more sternly critical of the first game's shady politics have just decided they have to cover the second game fairly breathlessly for clicks tho (or being owned by IGN et al has decided that for them). I wonder if zombie Eurogamer will feel compelled to acknowledge the existence of the next licensed Harry Potter game

Anyway uh sorry I'm belatedly playing UNICORN OVERLORD on PS5 and it's great

I wasn't sure the auto-battler aspect would appeal, but it turns out picking the right guys for the job, giving them some good instructions and then letting them cook is pretty satisfying

Yeah I guess the bad reviews are because they put in a black character and same sex relationships?

yeah this is why it confused me upthread to hear the creator is a nazi, as i saw people attacking the game for this. everything is so confusing. i think i understand now tho.

Keep Driving is out, excited to dig into that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6eFgU9XiHg

I guess "never Nazi enough" is a good rule of thumb for the cough online community cough

relapsed on apex (after 2-3 seasons off) because season 24 looks interesting :/

I wasn't playing any games when the gamergate stuff happened, so all I know about it stems from whatever burbled up to the top of whatever I was reading at the time. News, ILX, whatever. I'd honestly kind of forgotten about it, but this Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 release of course brought it up again. Is the idea that the developer was a loud and proud proto alt-right asshat about stuff back then, in what I guess turned out to be an opening salvo of the modern anti-woke wars? But now wants to "just leave politics out of it" or whatever with the release of the new game, leading critics to respond with some variant of "bro, *you're* the one that insisted on bringing ugly identity politics into the conversation in the first place"? The new game seems to be well-received, but while I support the idea of people abandoning or apologizing for their toxic traits, I'm unclear if this dude has been rehabilitated or if he is indeed still a troll publicly playing the neutral card.

anyone gone in on kingdom come: deliverance 2 yet? I am seeing reviews saying it's amazing and other ones saying it's absolutely terrible. tho most of the bad ones are user reviews. same thing happened with black myth: wukong and was equally confusing.

i took the plunge on it yesterday, playing on ps5. i'm only about 6 hours in and most of that was the pre-credits tutorial but i'm already starting to see why it's had such positive reviews. it has a lovely stately pace to it.

i hadn't heard of these games before this week and was unaware of any shadiness around the developers. also hadn't realised that it's been getting negative player feedback but after a quick look that appears to be largely either people complaining about bugs (which i've not encountered yet) or people complaining about it being too woke, which, yeah, fine, whatever.

too early to form any kind of judgment but it feels like a strange game right from the get go. i'd say it's been about 60% cutscenes so far. some of the voice acting is ok but some of it is quite astonishingly bad. the last game i put any real time into was BG3 so this is pretty jarring.

but i've been fully engaged right from the jump and it seems clear that it's going to be a very rich and deep game. i think it's going to be a very fun world to spend some time in. also it looks lovely

Vavra's line is that it's all about player choice and his precious historical accuracy, and the people complaining about the ~diverse stuff in the new game are as ridiculous as the social justice warriors complaining about the lack of it in the first one; he's still a vocal edgelord/Trump fanboy/gunfucker otherwise afaik

I've reached Vendrick in Dark Souls 2 and I'm into the end game. I heard the DLCs are excellent but I'm a bit Soulsed out at the moment.

Going back to a few games I put down a while ago: Monkey Island is nice causal gaming. I keep meaning to play the Horizon games but only got a short way through them. I also wanna replay the Witcher 3

I really liked the first Horizon game, haven't played the second. Or The Witcher 3! I wonder if I well ever get around to Witcher before the fourth one comes out.

i beat half of the UFO 50 games. amazing value on that thing, although there's around 15 games that I have no interest in, mainly the derek yu games - his games are often newground-style browser games with retro graphics instead of having retro gameplay. I still want to give Valbrace a go, it's the wizardry style game with punch-out fights.

hopefully i can put it down and play Lorelei and 1000xResist, two more 2024 games i've heard people raving about.

Witcher 3 is brilliant. First modern game I ever played and I loved every minute of it. Not sure how I'd feel about it now I'm a more seasoned gamer, but it blew my little mind. It's just so expansive and fun

I recently got 1000x Resist on Switch - only gave it a very quick go. It was abit confusing but I'm sure it will go somewhere

me and a friend have jumped into DayZ, having some kind of fun with it. Like the slow pace.

It's essential to avoid zombies, not because they are ooh monsters scary, but because the combat with them is pure trash.

really enjoying Keep Driving - while it's fundamentally yet another 'roguelike', it doesn't play or feel like anything else in that space. fantastic art and soundtrack too. i think it could probably stand to be 10-20% more difficult but if they wanted to make sure it's a chill experience for most people i get that. and maybe there's some harder objectives to pull off that i haven't found yet

i took the plunge on it yesterday, playing on ps5. i'm only about 6 hours in and most of that was the pre-credits tutorial but i'm already starting to see why it's had such positive reviews. it has a lovely stately pace to it.

i hadn't heard of these games before this week and was unaware of any shadiness around the developers. also hadn't realised that it's been getting negative player feedback but after a quick look that appears to be largely either people complaining about bugs (which i've not encountered yet) or people complaining about it being too woke, which, yeah, fine, whatever.

too early to form any kind of judgment but it feels like a strange game right from the get go. i'd say it's been about 60% cutscenes so far. some of the voice acting is ok but some of it is quite astonishingly bad. the last game i put any real time into was BG3 so this is pretty jarring.

but i've been fully engaged right from the jump and it seems clear that it's going to be a very rich and deep game. i think it's going to be a very fun world to spend some time in. also it looks lovely

yeah i can tell this is gonna take a fair bit of my time, i really like with these games when you can feel there's a sort of weight of learning at the beginning. not so much that it's really difficult, just that you have to take time to go from no skills or items or money onwards. spent about forty five minutes tonight just smithing stuff with the blacksmith while whistling a tune.

on the voice acting, it's definitely variable but there is one innkeeper woman and it's maybe the worst accent i've ever heard in any performance ever, including like watching a play at the pub for free. mind-bogglingly bad, like this forced, caught in the throat, 10% jamaica/10% geordie but the actor is probably american. i'm sure that must be one of the ones you mean.

it all feels very slow so far but it's the kind of game i'd been waiting for, another big open world, but not one that's too easy or light.

hahaha she was certainly the worst culprit and the first one i thought of, although there have been a lot of dodgy accents so far. the repeated use of certain words ("ain't", "fella") lands very oddly. not enough to put me off by any means, i'm enjoying this so far.

yeah agreed, some slightly weird words like that for sure, that stuff is annoying. or like kind of incongruous slangy swearing.

tho overall i do think the interactions are sort of well-scripted more broadly in the sense of being amusing or at least people feeling different from each other or vaguely like characters. low bar for videogames but prob not far off witcher 3 in this regard.

am not sure where it's all going as still feel i'm in the prologue but really enjoying it also.

on a diff point, i find it quite hard to steal in these games, not out of morality just don't want the stress of getting caught. on the other hand i did dig up some graves which felt fine as was outdoors.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
I'm just over 50% on my save file. Imagine resident evil 1 without the zombies but with puzzles that were actually good. my jam.
Took me too long to find the maps because i missed the "next page" indicator once.

As with DL I'm deep into Dark Souls 2 right now. Grabbed it a few weeks ago for 50% off. The first few hours were kind of rough and made me understand why people don't like it, but after that, it really got its hooks in me. It's hard to put my finger on but this one has my favorite *vibes* of the Souls games I've played thus far. It's the one that feels most like a dark fairy tale/bizzaro Zelda to me.

I also really like the level geometry's refusal to make sense in places, it enhances the dreamlike quality that all of these games have

I think the central hub of DS2 has a sort of loneliness or, yeah, dreamlike melancholy different from the other games. But I must admit, I'm shocked how quickly I forget these games I've spent so much time with! I like them all, but they kind of fade over time. For example, I was watching someone's playthrough of DS3, and wow, it's amazing how little I remember. Certainly not the order of progress.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

I've seen this one compared to Signalis.

first kingdom come is on sale on xbox. tempted…

Anyone play Nine Sols? 2D Sekiro sounds tempting, I've been having a hard time getting into games lately though.

I bought it, supposed to be great!! Of course, the biggest booster I know has a bad habit of buying Metroidvanias and then bouncing off of them because they are too hard for the reason all Metroidvanias are too hard. "I don't know where to go!" "The platforming is too precise!" Etc. I have all these texts from him over the months that are variations of "dude, I had to take a break from Hollow Knight" or "dude, I've been getting back into Hollow Knight" or "man, Hollow Knight is too hard" or "I just started watching a Hollow Knight guide and I'm really into the game!", punctuated with the occasional "you have to buy Nine Sols, it rules!" Which is inevitably followed by "I wasn't getting anywhere in Nine Sols, so I went back to Hollow Knight."

putting out a 25 hour metroidvania is proportionally equivalent to putting out a 100 hour RPG, a true act of hubris. sounds like people like it though. people liked persona 5 too but i'm not gonna fall for it

Haha. Yeah, I still have to play that Prince of Persia game, I did the intro and was annoyed by having to talk to people. Get to the game! But it did seem promising.

I actually finished Blasphemous 2, that was probably the last non-From game I played. Looking forward to their Ninja Gaiden game.

heh, for some reason I got really excited about the release of Blasphemous 2, but then I had to remind myself I never played the first one and shouldn't put the sequel in the permanent backlog pile/queue just yet.

i didn't like Nine Sols, but that's because (like Sekiro), it's based on the parry. if you love to parry, you will love Nine Sols and be awesome at it

It's Time to Parry
Parry Hard
Parry til You Puke

I've been taking a break from DS2 to dig into Avowed. I'm enjoying it so far--fun combat, intriguing world, kind of goofy characters & dialogue. A podcast I like rates it a 7 on a scale of 1 to Oblivion (that is a compliment from them)

I'm playing Pentiment on Switch. A beautiful game but I don't think I'm doing very well. Maybe the 2nd act is a chance to right some of those old wrongs?

Ohhh I love Pentiment. I wouldn't worry too much about "doing well", just roll with the punches and see how the story turns out. Andreas is going to make mistakes; he's a flawed dude.

re Pentiment, probably applies here

the decision-making process for 2/3 of the game is more 'what is the least awful choice I can make' than 'what is the best choice I can make'

ah nice, cheers! yeah often the choices amount to "offend the Baron or offend the monks", which makes things feel consequential. I think it will have replay value too,trying a different background and acting in different ways