What are you playing? (Coronavirus edition)

[Tom Servo]

I bought Assassin's Creed: Odyssey maybe a year or so ago and am finally playing it. I did not realize that ever since Black Flag, all AC games must be 70% yachting adventure.

[Rare White Ape]

I’m gunna swing back around to Lego SW for a sec:

For those playing it, just wait til you get to the bit in Episode IV where Han and Luke are on the Death Star in stormtrooper outfits and are escorting Chewie to the detention centre.

An Imperial boss-man is on the video screens telling everyone to find the intruders and our heroes have to find a way to convince everyone that the intruders have been eliminated, when they come across the little TV studio from where the message was being broadcast.

Absolute nonsense takes place in that room and it is so damn cute and hilarious

Just a small part of how great this game is.

[SkylineObsession]

Working through Battlefield 1 campaign at the mo (over the past few months, when i've had time/been in a gaming mood - which hasn't been often). Not really missing GT7 since i uninstalled it. Haven't bought Forza Horizon 5 yet either, mainly cos i don't see the point spending heaps of money on a game when i barely game anymore. I'll wait until it's stupid cheap to buy it.

On another note, most of the monthly PS Plus/Games with Gold games have been utter shit lately, making me seriously consider why i'm wasting $90 a year on both consoles.

[MR2 Fan]

After watching this VERY nostalgic video for me about Wipeout XL/2097...



I decided to start playing Ballistic NG which is basically a highly similar homage to the early Wipeout games. They even set it up where you can replace the audio and of course add tracks and vehicles, so you can get pretty close to the original games....and it's great.

I don't know if I mentioned it here but the only reason I bought the first playstation was to buy Wipeout XL after renting the console once and fell in love with it. I still have my copy of the game even though I sold off the playstation and all of the other games a long time ago.

[Kchrpm]

I saw a video of someone playing Mini Motorways on YouTube, and immediately bought it for Switch. It's the console game I play most now. You're just connecting homes to buildings of the same color and trying to keep traffic flowing for as long as possible, and every "week" you get to choose between two upgrades like bridges (to cross water), motorways (to cross everything other than mountains), tunnels (to go through mountains), roundabouts, traffic lights, and just more roads.

You set up the flow for what it gives you, see how it goes, and then it randomly pops up new homes and buildings, and you have to adapt. Will you have two groups cross each other, with a stoplight or intersection, or will you make one go the long way around? What happens when a third group needs to cross both of them? And now someone on the outskirts needs to get right in the middle!

This is the video that convinced me, since I don't have one up:

[dodint]

Neat. Sim City meets Pipe Dream.

[lostnight]

I’m playing Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord. It’s a medieval wargame with rpg elements, massive battles, up to 1000 troops on the field, very deep game. On Xbox Series X.

[CudaMan]

Mini Motorways looks kinda fun. Cities Skylines is about the only non-racing game I've gotten into as an adult so I may have to give this a go.

[Rare White Ape]

I'm playing Windbound right now, in-between iRacing events of course. I scored it free off the Epic Games Store ages ago and never got round to playing it until this week. There are blatantly obvious Zelda influences here, with the pared-back open-worldy exploration and crafting of BotW, as well as the open seas stuff from Wind Waker.

But there are a few key differences:
1. They remove the narrative almost entirely in favour of a very bare story akin to something found in Journey or Abzu.
2. The environment is a small-ish radius of ocean with islands dotted about, packaged into chapters where you unlock some beacons to access the next chapter, and a new group of islands. There are no towns, merchants, or other NPCs.
3. They ramp up the survival elements, which can be a big turn-off for a lot of people, and they cause you to rely on crafting skills to provide food and equipment for yourself.
4. Each chapter is more difficult than the last, so you better get good at crafting better weapons. And organising your limited inventory space!
5. The environments are procedurally generated, and they reset each chapter with new islands if you die. Normally proc-gen would be a big no for me, but I kinda like it here. You can choose whether you lose all your gear if you die, or keep it. Nice.
6. Crafting involves everything from food to weapons to armour and even your boat. You unlock new recipes by killing new critters or finding new resources. Plus resources are sometimes hard to come by.

I have found it so far to be quite good and quite entertaining. Not 11/10 like BotW but good enough to keep me satisfied. The biomes I have seen so far are gorgeous, with a nice chill atmosphere when you're poking around looking for stuff. Obviously it's not as good as a fully handmade world but on the flip side you will get something new with each play through.

I am considering a new play through even though I am only at the beginning, so that I can make better use of my resources early on and give myself a better chance when I unlock more stuff. One thing with these rogue-lite games is that they are almost designed to be too hard at first, and they become easier thanks to you gaining better skills and equipment. I look forward to playing more.

[Yw-slayer]

Got Cyberpunk. Not bad. Still playing Genshin though.