What are you playing? (Coronavirus edition)

[sandydandy]

With a lot of people at home due to the Covid-19 pandemic, whether WFH or laid off and getting unemployment, I figure there’s more time to play video games.

So I thought I’d ask.

I took last Friday off, which was a rare thing for me. I don’t foresee many more days off, since I am in an “essential service” business. I very much enjoyed dusting off the old PS2 on Friday, and played The Godfather pretty much all weekend.

It came down to a choice between four games: Godfather, X-Men Legends, GTA: San Andreas (which I’ve never played) and the PS1 game Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. I had my mind made up beforehand that I wanted to play Godfather, but asked Siri to choose anyway, (to pick a number between 1-4). She kept picking other games so I had to shut her up.

I love this game with a passion. Hadn’t played it since 2012, which is a long time. Played Friday through Sunday and made it to Capo. Won’t be playing this week until at least Friday night. Or maybe I’ll sneak in a couple of hours tonight. We’ll see. Feeling kinda tired.

[dodint]

I'm fully back into iRacing. I also do an informal lobby on Wednesday in GT:S. Other than that not much else has changed. I bought the new Ace Combat but it was underwhelming, only played it the one time so far.

[Cam]

My regular games (Xbone) right now are Rocket League and Warface. I went back and played some Ace Combat 6 and 7 in the past couple of weeks. I also reinstalled Borderlands 2 this week. I’ve been doing a lot of iRacing this week, as I bought some extra content.

[Jason]

Currently Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on Switch.

I’m assuming I’ll get Final Fantasy 7 Remake in a couple weeks, though.

[George]

GTA V (story mode).

I need to put that down and pick up a guitar instead.

[SkylineObsession]

Kinda getting back into GT Sport a bit, after finishing the campaign on COD Modern Warfare. Of which, after the ending credits i ventured into a battle royal in the Warzone (the new MMO) mode just to see what it was like, and out of 130 - or more? - players i finished up in tenth...
By lying down and hiding behind a rock on a mountain the whole time, not shooting or being shot by anyone. Hehehe. The poison gas got me in the end, as the map shrunk yet again.

But yeah, i don't do online shooters. I play shooting games how i would in real life. Slow, steady and with a metric tonne of stealth. I'm not a runner and gunner, so i just get absolutely eaten alive in online shooting games. Like from the other side of the map. By a ten year old with one shot from a slingshot. While i'd been sending round after round of .50 cal sniper rounds, fourty crates of missiles, two nuclear bombs and twenty two aggressive alien attacks to his location, with no effect.

*Ahem*

Other than that, playing co-op campaign on Sniper Elite 3 with wifey. And not a lot else, even thought there's seven thousand games i've yet to play that i own. :/

[Blerpa]

. Doom Eternal: graphics aside, which are wonderful, I don't like much of the game. Unfortunately it goes back to the original colourized "swarm of enemies" style of play, missing the dark exploration and jumpscares of Doom 3 and Doom from 2016.
If that wasn't enough to disappoint me the game is basically Tomb Raider in FPS. Way too many jumps and parkour moments, with way too much necessary melee involvment.
Skills, Runes, Weapon mods and alterations: way too much of everything, and explained in a boring way. A bit like in Rage 2.
Friend of mine was fascinated by the plot and loved it: I find it as mediocre as any B movie out there.

. Forza Horizon 4: as usual, but lately it has been boring.

. Assetto Corsa/Assetto Corsa Competizione/Dirt 2.0/Euro Trucks Sim 2: all halted lately because I'm driving in F1 2019 once in a while. But I can't wait to have some leagues going in AC or ACC as soon as the F1 2019 craze dies over (It happened the same with Dirt 2.0 which we were playing till 10 days ago).

. F1 2019: I'm in a league of people. It's fun, we even exceed the 20 drivers per race limit (2020 and still we have these stupid limits... Nascar 2003 and 43 cars online. I rest my case). Anyhow, three quarters of the drivers do not know how to drive and often there are big shunts at T1 after the start. I average around the 8th-10th place usually, making do avoiding people and trying to not take necessary risks. Graphics are nice.

. The Witcher 3: I've to start Blood and Wine expansion so I'll finish the whole game once and for all. It will be my goodbye to the game.

[Tom Servo]

even thought there's seven thousand games i've yet to play that i own. :/

Hah, that's where I'm at. Huge list of Steam games, still haven't played most of them and yet am able to sit here and just think "Well, shit, what should I do with myself?"

[Yw-slayer]

Infinite Warfare campaign mode. Damn good. I'll resume Titanfall 2 after that.

[sandydandy]

Finished The Godfather. I am now the Don of NYC. :D

I won’t get into how many hours I played this game over the past five days, let’s just say it was too many. It was so addictive. I’ll play it again in five years or so.

Thinking of moving on to GTA San Andreas for the first time ever.


GTA V (story mode).

I need to put that down and pick up a guitar instead. How would you compare V to SA? Some people say SA is the best game in the GTA series. I’ve only played V and loved the shit out of it.

[George]

I’ve only played V and loved the shit out of it.

Me too.

I'm still finding things to do. Just this very morning, Franklin won his first game of darts in my game. Took a few tries to understand the scoring system but the win got me another .2% toward completion. He bought Pitchers also. The side missions from that may be interesting, based on the characters who linger outside.

[Rare White Ape]

How would you compare V to SA? Some people say SA is the best game in the GTA series. I’ve only played V and loved the shit out of it.

It is excellent. But don’t expect good controls or visuals; it’s an old game that has aged only partially well in the last 15 years. Although once you get lost in the game it’s hard to draw yourself out again.

A word of warning: some of the ports to newer systems are very sub-par. It’s best to play it on original hardware like PS2 or Xbox. Most of the modern versions are built from the mobile phone version of the game!

[Dicknose]

Should pull out Fallout 4... even if it mostly to get into "post apocalypse" mode.

[speedpimp]

Still all in on Elder Scrolls Online.

[Phil_SS]

Destiny: Though not as much as usual. Not a huge fan of this current season. Atleast so far.

COD: Been playin Warzone. Which is COD's attempt at a Battle Royale. Pretty fun and it is free to play. Though I like the 3-person squads rather than the quad squads of this season. With quads it just feels like I am dying way more often. Triples felt right for the gameplay.

[SkylineObsession]

Been WRC6ing, Dirt Rally 1ing, and trying out a few free Xbox Games with Gold games i had. Pretty much doing the Cam test, if i don't like it or it gets too hard in a few mins then it gets deleted. ;)

[Blerpa]

Been WRC6ing, Dirt Rally 1ing, and trying out a few free Xbox Games with Gold games i had. Pretty much doing the Cam test, if i don't like it or it gets too hard in a few mins then it gets deleted. ;)

That's the way to do it.
I only finished Doom Eternal, the others get tried and uninstalled if they do not convince me quickly.

Back to F1 2019 and Forza Horizon 4 for me.
Also added Hob to the list of games to play in this period: wanted to buy since quite some time, then Epic Games Store made it available for free.
First EGS game I'm playing, truly.
Still... fuck EGS.

[Tom Servo]

Just tried to get the FF7 Remake on the PS4 since I figured that'd be a good game to play during all this.

Goddamn if the PS4 user interface isn't the most infuriatingly broken pile of shit. It reminds me of why I almost never use my PS4.

[SkylineObsession]

I find the opposite actually, the PS4 seems much more user friendly than Xbox to me.

[Rare White Ape]

Hahahaha yep, I’ve been pretty vocal about how shit the Xbox UI is compared to the PS4 one.

[Blerpa]

Really? I have an Xbox One.
I use from time to time the PS4 Pro at my friend place when I'm there, which was often, before the quarantine, and I think I never used an UI as bad as the PS4 one - like, the Xbox One even makes a lot of sense in comparison (once you change the whole garish green everywhere by the options).

[Yw-slayer]

I like the Crossbar far more than the 360's interface. I don't think I've ever used the One's interface for more than a 10 seconds. But I have to say that I was and am still a big fan of the Windows Mobile 10 interface.

[Tom Servo]

Here was my experience:

First off, for some reason my PS4 likes to just completely turn itself off instead of stay in rest mode if I don't play it often enough, which means the controller stops charging and loses all its charge. So, invariably, I then have to do everything with it plugged in over USB, which is annoying. It's also annoying that, for some reason, it won't charge when I plug it into my wall USB charger.

I go into the store and try to buy FF7. That part goes well enough until I get to payment. My saved credit card has expired, so I go to add another one. Only problem is, apparently this is the third time this has happened and you a) can't have more than three saved credit cards and b) they don't remove expired ones automatically, no matter how many years ago they expired.

I go to add a new credit card and it tells me that you can't actually do that from the checkout page. You have to completely exit checkout, go back to the main page of the store, find Payment Options (hint, it's the very last item on the left rail, not visible on the screen normally, you have to go searching for it). I find that, and go to delete my cards. I can't delete the latest expired one because it's the default. I delete the other two and go to add a new card, it asks for my password to confirm. Of course I've got a randomly generated password from a password safe, which is oh-so-fun to type on a controller. I get that done, then I go to add the new card. Put in name, card number, expiration, etc, then I go to another screen where now I have to type out my full street address on the controller. I finally get through all of that, and it says something along the lines of "An error occurred: #81" and kicks me back out.

That's when I gave up.

I later did it through the web, I think the error is that the card number on my new card is the same as the expired one, and it considered that a "duplicate" even though they had different expiration dates.

Why they couldn't maybe a) let me put in more than three credit cards or b) let me remove ones from within the checkout flow or c) put in a new card with the same number but different expiration or d) give me a even marginally useful error message or e) at least told me there was a problem after I put the card number in but before I had to type in my long-ass address with a controller is why I say the PS4 interface is a huge pile of shit.

[Yw-slayer]

That's the psn billing section's coding and underlying design, not necessarily its interface or even the ps4's general interface.

With that said, I empathise, man.

[Tom Servo]

Fair, but either way, I wonder how many sales they lose to that insane amount of friction.

[Tom Servo]

That said, it's kinda a trip that the cutscenes look better than they did on the original and then you realize they're not cutscenes. It does sorta have that thing that you get when someone makes a movie out of your favorite book - a lot of the things in it are different from how I imagined them when I played the original.

[Rare White Ape]

That credit card juggling must have sucked.

I do all my PSN transactions via the store on my phone, and I’ve got my PayPal linked so no worries with cards there.

[Godson]

I've experienced the CC juggling before too.

For the random shut-off, check your settings. I think there is a "rest-mode shutoff after x hours" option.

Also, I know you can select to have the USB powered always in the options list.

[Godson]

Also, back a few months ago I picked up the Nathan Drake collection on PSN for free. This month had uncharted 4, the final for nathan drake, also for free. So I netted 4 of the five games, for 0$.


I started playing the series at number 3, so this will be fun to learn the front story. It has sorta ruined pieces of the story though.

Currently 91% through the first one, and controls as bad as I remembered the others being. I know the later ones fixed some issues later on. I'm excited to finish the first one tonight and going to number 2 later.

[2ndMoparMan]

WoW Classic, some of Halo MCC and World of Warships are my three right now. Debating on getting back into LoL, but I dunno. I am BAD at that game

[Godson]

Finished the first uncharted just now. Lots of fun, but more gunplay than I care for. Mostly because the gunplay is just bad.

[SkylineObsession]

I love the Uncharted games and wish they'd make more. :(

Playing Bioshock 1 at the moment. Had played the demo a few times in the past and didn't like the game, because i don't generally play 'scary' games.

But now that the Bioshock collection came out for free on PS4 in February, i decided to give it the old 5 minute test as i do with most games these days, and a few days later i'm about halfway or more through the game.
It's not as scary as i first thought it was in the demo, especially with the array of weapons and such to fight back with.

It reminds me a hell of a lot of Fallout games, with its old school drawings/cartoons/ingame advertisements/humour etc so that helps immensely to keep me interested.

[Leon]

World of Warcraft, again. My account tells me that I haven't had an account for three years.

[2ndMoparMan]

Playing live or classic, Leon?

[Leon]

Playing live :). Well, other than when I don't notice an elite high level mob, in which case I am playing dead.

[2ndMoparMan]

lol I haven't touched live since classic came out for the most part.

[MR2 Fan]

Just bought a PS4 after all these years...so I could play FF7R.....really loving it so far...the amount of work and detail put into this game is insane. 10/10 so far

[Yw-slayer]

Speaking of WoW. This is a great article. https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-47064773

[Tom Servo]

Just bought a PS4 after all these years...so I could play FF7R.....really loving it so far...the amount of work and detail put into this game is insane. 10/10 so far

I got to that first scorpion boss and immediately got my ass handed to me. Reminds me that I am old and suck at video games now.

[SkylineObsession]

I see FF7R has made my brother unpack his PS4 and turn it on again after a year or more of being stored away due to lack of use. ;)

[2ndMoparMan]

Lot of people are busting it out again. I have to admit that FF7 might make me finally buy a PS4. Game looks amazing.

[MR2 Fan]

Yes, I'm about 40% done with it and....so well polished...visuals are insanely good, not just the graphics (Unreal 4 engine, so duh) but how they used the visuals to give the sheer sense of scale of midgar and the reactors, plates etc.

Oh, also Tifa :eek:

[2ndMoparMan]

Jessie thirsty af.

[Kchrpm]

Animal Crossing and Overwatch.

[sandydandy]

So I finished Godfather on PS2 a couple of weeks ago, then realized there exists a much improved PS3 version of the game called Godfather: Don’s Edition, which I had to have and found on eBay. Currently waiting for it.

In the meantime played and finished X-Men Legends. It was a nice game. I had forgotten how much I loved it, as I hadn’t played it in years. Now onto X-Men Legends II. Then probably Marvel Ultimate Alliance, 1 and 2.

[MR2 Fan]

Jessie thirsty af.

yes, definitely

[Rare White Ape]

I’m thirsty for Jessie.

[Godson]

So, uncharted 2 complete.

Boss fight was absolutely shit.

[GreatScawt]

Oh man, I remember going through that with my friend. That super sucked.

[Godson]

I've been playing on hard, an for whatever reason, I'm only getting credit for easy completions. I haven't changed the difficulty at all once the game starts. It's bizarre

[21Kid]

Does anyone need Xbox games to keep themselves busy. I have the following, free to a good home.

3540

[Rare White Ape]

Thats very kind and generous of you.

[drew]

Currently involved with Witcher 3 for about the last 2-3 weeks. Re-started about 6-7 times, due to getting the mod combinations to play nice together.

(I can't NOT mod a game....)

[MR2 Fan]

For anyone who's finished FF7R, there are some changes to the story and there's been a LOT of theories about what's going on. This is a great video regarding some theories and I'm excited about it:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfgw7iDZ-bo

[Jason]

Finally got my TV and systems set up at the new place, and started playing FF7R... and as much as it's gorgeous and more detailed, I find myself struggling to get into it as much as I want. I think it's because I didn't really care about Midgar all that much in the original, but I very much loved the rest of the larger world, exploring new areas, cities, and unraveling the mysteries of Cloud, Aeris, Sephiroth, the Weapons, the Ancients, etc. Hopefully Part II and beyond are soon to come, because I want that stuff in this new style.

[dodint]

Picked up the original Doom and Doom II, ported to the PS4. With the Spring Sale that is going on I spent about $7 for both. So much fun going back and replaying. I had Doom II for Windows 95 and once the levels got a bit more complicated my old 486 PC wouldn't render it anymore. :lol:

The look and sound of the game is spot on, and they did some little things to update it like add controller vibration. Very cool.

[2ndMoparMan]

People are still modding Doom and Doom 2. Found some videos the other day and I'm suprized tbh.

[FaultyMario]

Shogun Total War 2 is 100% off normal price until friday.

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/36333614/sale/TotalWarSale

[GreatScawt]

I've essentially been golding guns in COD MW, keeping up on FH4 weekly seasonal events, and progressing through ACNH without time travel :lol:

[Kchrpm]

In the meantime played and finished X-Men Legends. It was a nice game. I had forgotten how much I loved it, as I hadn’t played it in years. Now onto X-Men Legends II. Then probably Marvel Ultimate Alliance, 1 and 2.
Let me know when you get to Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on the Switch :up:

[M4FFU]

Snowrunner has me sold. Will be d/ling that today.

[SkylineObsession]

I've got the predecessor, Mudrunner, on Xbox. Not a bad game, and good if you like offroading.

Worst part is the slow and unresponsive steering when going at speed (sealed roads), so i really hope they've fixed that in Snowrunner.

[MR2 Fan]

Started Red Dead Redemption 2....about 30% through the story so far. I enjoy it....not sure if it's a TON better than the first one which I loved, but still having fun. The controls are weird and annoying though

[M4FFU]

I've got the predecessor, Mudrunner, on Xbox. Not a bad game, and good if you like offroading.

Worst part is the slow and unresponsive steering when going at speed (sealed roads), so i really hope they've fixed that in Snowrunner.

I had MR, too. It is better. The high speed driving isn't perfect, but given the small amount of time you spend at speed, I can overlook it for all the other improvements SR has. I think I've found my new time sink, game.

[M4FFU]

Started Red Dead Redemption 2....about 30% through the story so far. I enjoy it....not sure if it's a TON better than the first one which I loved, but still having fun. The controls are weird and annoying though

I love me a R* game, and RDR1 is top 5 games I've ever played, but I just lost the will with RDR2 about half way in. Just didn't care for it. It's beautiful, epic, but just left me removed from what was going on, sadly.

[Rare White Ape]

Are you guys having a little whinge about how shitty old trucks weighing 45 tonnes on shitty old cross-ply truck tyres don't handle well when travelling over 45 miles per hour on shitty old roads?

Well I never!

[M4FFU]

Ha :D no. The steering sensitive at speed is the same at 2mph. Just makes it, er, lively at anything in 4th or 5th gear.

[Leon]

Well World of Warcraft held may attention for maybe two weeks :) About as expected.

[Cam]

I recently enjoyed playing a twin-stick shooter called Inferno 2. I quite enjoyed Inferno back in the Xbox 360 days, so I bought 2 for the Xbone. I think it is available on other platforms. It’s economical and simple to play. It’s an indie game developed by one guy, so support hard-working independent artists and developers!

[Kchrpm]

I recently enjoyed playing a twin-stick shooter called Inferno 2. I quite enjoyed Inferno back in the Xbox 360 days, so I bought 2 for the Xbone. I think it is available on other platforms. It’s economical and simple to play. It’s an indie game developed by one guy, so support hard-working independent artists and developers!

Only $5 on Switch and a positive review from Cam? I'm in! PURCHASED!!!! (with points)

I might get Streets of Rage 4, too. I'm watching my second video review and they are both quite glowing.

[Yw-slayer]

I'm probaby going to get it, but will need to get a us eshoo card to redeem as they don't take PayPal from my region anymore (most likely because Nintendo set up an hk store).

[sandydandy]

Let me know when you get to Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on the Switch :up: Just got the Switch. Actually my son did, and he plays some Zelda game on it. Getting MUA 3 is definitely on the agenda.

[Kchrpm]

:up: :up: :up: :up: :up:

[MR2 Fan]

so in RDR2 today I found this hitler looking fellow in Saint Denis trying to sell eugenics aka white purity shit....so I antagonized him then beat the living crap out of him....a cop stood nearby watched the whole thing and didn't care...guess he had it coming! lol

[Tom Servo]

Convinced the wife to let me get her a Switch Lite with Animal Crossing. She's kinda excited, I'm all excited to set her up with foreign fruit trees to rack up the bells fast.

[Rare White Ape]

Farmer wants a wife.

[sandydandy]

Finished X-Men Legends II a couple of weeks ago and then jumped right on Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Kind of sped through that as I started it with previously saved data, so all the characters started at level 40 or so. It was hilarious how my team would just burn through all the enemies with ease. One-shotting them all. Two-shotting bosses. I know it kind of takes away the challenge, and some of the fun, but I just wanted to blow through it as quickly as possible. Wanted to get to MUA 2, which I had never played before.

Just started MUA 2 yesterday...and it was not quite what I expected. Doesn't have the same feel as its predecessors. They took away some of the features I'd been accustomed to, and added some new ones that I don't quite understand. But whatever, I'm sure I'll learn to like it. Still on the first levels. This game revolves around the Secret War and Civil War comic events. I quite enjoyed Secret War, and am thinking of digging up that 5-part series and re-reading just for fun. Not a huge fan of Civil War comics, though I loved the shit out of the Captain America movie.

[Blerpa]

I finished finally a first complete F1 career season in F1 2019. It's ok, but at a point it feels like a chore.
I probably won't ever play it offline, aside from training for when we race from time to time online with some people I know online... but interest has already vaned after less than 2 months even for them.
I presume we will be on the fence for F1 2020.

I should truly continue Blood&Wine DLC for The Witcher 3 but aside from the daily Forza Horizon 4 playing... I got duped in playing No Man's Sky from a mate.
I'm done.
Me, him, his work mate, her girlfriend, another two guys and the wife of one of them... we are all doing bases, buying starships, frigates, exploring the universe.
Basically I'm going to lose myself in this game like I did with Minecraft, but with the multi component to make it worse LOL

[MR2 Fan]

Since I previously posted my FF7R thoughts here....figured I'd continue. Since there was some...changes made in the remake, people have been wondering what they'll do regarding THAT scene....


Will Aerith die the same way or at all?


and my thoughts from what we've seen in FF7R


I honestly don't recall if this was really a thing in the original, but in the remake, some of your decisions affected who you talk to for a pivotal scene later in the game where Cloud either talks to Aerith, Tifa or Barrett. I didn't even know this was the case until I saw someone else playing through and the Cloud and Tifa scene was MUCH more interesting than the Cloud talking to Aerith scene IMO, or maybe I'm just a fan of Tifa more

Anyway, my thought is that leading up to the next game(s), if the decision on whether Aerith is going to die may even end up being based on your choices in the game. We could honestly have several endings based on your choices, sort of like GTA5 but not that obvious. I could see where Aerith dies or Tifa dies or Barrett or even Cloud himself dies in the end.....and maybe all of them can be saved somehow. It would add a lot of replay ability.

Personally I bet one of them has to die, because it is a Japanese story and melancholy is pretty standard for endings :p

[Cam]

Torchlight was a free game with gold quite some time ago. I played it a bit, then set it aside until last week. I played the heck out of it since.

[Rare White Ape]

Ghost of Tsushima is a great time. If you’re on the fence, get it. You won’t regret it.

[MR2 Fan]

I'd totally buy it, but I have no time to play anything right now. I bought like 4 games lately and haven't had a chance to play any of them

[Blerpa]

Tried Horizon Zero Dawn, on PC.
Mediocre port, strange shimmery and dolly-ish face graphics, Uninstalled.
I reckon they did a better porting job with Death Stranding.

[FaultyMario]

Stardew Valley.

[Tom Servo]

Been getting a lot of mileage out of fitness boxing on the Switch as an exercise routine during all this. Still playing Animal Crossing along with the wife who has now upgraded to a full-size Switch.

[Cam]

When I had a Xbox 360, I owned Minecraft and played the heck out of it. When I upgraded to Xbone, my 360 copy of Minecraft was now worthless. Slightly annoyed, I never bothered to buy it again... until now. Needless to say, I've been digging dirt and spelunking this week.

[Yw-slayer]

Servo, what have you been doing for boxing? Arms? Ringfit?

[Tom Servo]

There's a game called Fitness Boxing, it just uses the joycons and you basically shadowbox to music. You can totally game it and not do the workout, but if you, it's actually pretty good. My wife has a fitbit and says her calorie burn estimates from it pretty much match the game, so she burns about 400 calories over a 40 minute workout with it.

We have Ring Fit as well, but haven't gotten into that so much.

[Tom Servo]

Tried Horizon Zero Dawn, on PC.
Mediocre port, strange shimmery and dolly-ish face graphics, Uninstalled.
I reckon they did a better porting job with Death Stranding.

I can't remember, had you already played it on PS4, or was this your first time playing it?

[Yw-slayer]

There's a game called Fitness Boxing, it just uses the joycons and you basically shadowbox to music. You can totally game it and not do the workout, but if you, it's actually pretty good. My wife has a fitbit and says her calorie burn estimates from it pretty much match the game, so she burns about 400 calories over a 40 minute workout with it.

We have Ring Fit as well, but haven't gotten into that so much.

Ah, thanks! Will check it out.

That said, they play Zumba so I'm not sure we really need another fitness game.

[JSGeneral]

Fall Guys is stupid... and fun. I keep going back for more.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj3dUvGLjNQ

[sandydandy]

Starting playing Super Mario 64 on the Switch as part of a Super Mario package. I was a little rusty at first, as it had been nearly a decade since I last played this. The analog stick on the Switch controller was problematic for a while, as it was super sensitive compared to the old N64 controller. It took some getting used to but I mastered it. Been playing for a few days now and have already grabbed 100 stars. I'm pleased to say that even after a lengthy absence I haven't lost my touch. I still rock at this game!

[Cam]

I played the Mass Effect series through twice in the past couple of months. Still my fave. Although, I have never been able to successfully save both the Quarians and the Geth. :(

It is surprising how many people still play ME3 multiplayer. I can always get a quick match.

[Rare White Ape]

I've been playing Flight Sim. Lots of Flight Sim.

But I got a Rift S for my PC this week and I played chapter 1 of Vader Immortal last night.

It's not an amazing game but for Star Wars nerds like myself it is essential playing. I will buy chapter 2 tonight and give it a whirl.

[Kchrpm]

Marvel's Avengers. The core gameplay loop is so fun, and they're patching in fixes for stability issues and gameplay improvements.

[Leon]

Waiting impatiently for Baldur's Gate 3 to be released... delayed until 6th October. [fidget]

[Alan P]

Star Wars Squadrons. Working through the story so far. I think I need a VR headset again and a HOTAS rather than my 15 year old Logitech Attack 3.

[Rare White Ape]

You want to know something funny, yet also kinda sad?

I own a fuckton (http://gtxforums.net/showthread.php?671-Flight-Sims&p=155274&viewfull=1#post155274) of gadgets (http://gtxforums.net/showthread.php?1410-Virtual-reality-is-here-almost&p=155401&viewfull=1#post155401) (no kids, you see), but this afternoon in a flash of nostalgia I had the sudden urge to want to replay Ocarina of Time.

It is a magical game that means so much to me.

The only question is, do I play with an emulator, the remake on 3DS, or the original hardware, which I have in a cupboard under the stairs?

Or I could play it in VR (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzyf1SyM-1A&ab_channel=SuperBunnyhop)......................... .................................................. ...........................

[Blerpa]

So, I finally completed The Witcher 3. Both main game, first expansion (Hearts of Stone) and second expansion (Blood and Wine, which I liked more than the first one).
Did all the secondary quests, scouted everything, only Gwent quests were avoided (Ewww).
215 hours... I loved it. The plots and dialogues of the game make the Netflix tv series feel like Benny Hill, in comparison.

So aside from my usual online (various Forza, F1 2020, Genshin Impact) gaming and procedural one (Minecraft, No Man's Sky) I did find myself without a big game to play.
I've Control, Hob, The Last Campfire, Windbound, The Flame in the Flood awaiting for me, but I wanted something big.
Wolfestein Youngblood so far has been disappointing and boring, Cyberpunk 2077 has yet to come out, so I jumped into trying various FPS with single player stories, even old games.
Mind, I'm the Cam type: I try, I see how it develops and then uninstall it if the game does not entuses me.

I tried Singularity: graphics are pretty old, textures are low quality, anti aliasing is bad (jaggies anywhere) and unfortunately there's no 21:9 option. The intro is a bit meh, the plot is not particularly original and I got motion sickness. Uninstalled.

Then Lichdom: Battlemage: despite having Crytek engine the game looks bland and uninspiring, story as usual seems a bit generic and the character movements are wooden. No much freedom of movement either. Boring (too bad, a new Dark Messiah of M&M clone would have been cool): uninstalled.

Bulletstorm FC edition: I had already played this game. Graphics are uninspired, there's a patetic macho vibe all over the characters and basically there's not much to go for it. Uninstalled.

Stalker Call of Prypyat: I was never into the Stalker series but I wanted to try the newest of the trilogy. Graphics are dated, with a shitload of low textures but at least there was decent Anti Aliasing here, although better than the one in Singularity and incredibly the game accepted my 21:9 aspect ratio. Movement are ok, albeit there are way too many menu to care for (a bit like Fallout series, with which I had a final and definitive... fallout? Pun intended), but the mood was great, way better than Metro Exodus (another game I abandoned at least a year ago); looking forward to an eventual new chapter in the series, hopefully with a more streamlined approach. Uninstalled but with merits.

Terminator - Resistance: this is actually not a bad game. Graphics are competent albeit not over the top or much modern, controls are about fine, and the setting is a bit of a familiar one. The tension from the Terminator universe seems to be reproduced in spades. Not a top game but a solid minor one, I'd say.
It remains installed, I'm intrigued to see where the story brings me.

Now I'm downloading CoD Modern Warfare Remastered: I've never been into CoD or Battlefield games, but the MW series has been remastered in the last few years and it seems they have a decent single player campaign. I'm an old Delta Force player (offline) so I could see myself doing missions and progressing in the story.
Dunno what to expect, but surely graphics should be ok.
If I will like it I will look into the second and third remastered games.
I dunno if Black Ops 1, 2, 3, Ghosts, Advanced Warfare and Infinite Warfare have single player campaigns worthy of my time, but the IW futuristic vibe, for example, could interest me.

I may look also into Hard Reset Redux (but I'm afraid it will be boring), Homefront The Revolution (never finished the first game, this could be boring as well) and possibly Crysis 3 (never finished Crysis 2, got bored at a point).
Star Wars Squadrons could be interesting but 1) I'm shit in dogfight 2) I don't have an HOTAS.

Chime in for suggestions and comments!

[Leon]

Waiting impatiently for Baldur's Gate 3 to be released... delayed until 6th October. [fidget]

aaaaaand having bought a new laptop for this game, instacrash won't even start.

/eye twitch

Will re-start the computer, and see if that unfucks things.

[Rare White Ape]

Blerps you could try both Outer Wilds and The Outer Worlds, two very confusingly named games from the middle of last year.

The former is a wonderful puzzle-adventure game set in a mini solar system, good for fans of crazy science fiction films of the early 20th century.

The latter is a spiritual successor of Fallout: New Vegas, from that developer. I’m not sure if you’re a fan of Fallout but judging by your love of The Witcher 3 it might be just the thing you need.

[Leon]

aaaaaand having bought a new laptop for this game, instacrash won't even start.
.

Thanks to google, and also the studio replying to a question on twitter, game is underway. I keep dying, but that's kind of my problem ...

[Blerpa]

Blerps you could try both Outer Wilds and The Outer Worlds, two very confusingly named games from the middle of last year.

The former is a wonderful puzzle-adventure game set in a mini solar system, good for fans of crazy science fiction films of the early 20th century.

The latter is a spiritual successor of Fallout: New Vegas, from that developer. I’m not sure if you’re a fan of Fallout but judging by your love of The Witcher 3 it might be just the thing you need.

Yeah, I tried the Outer Worlds, but it is not my cup of cake: as I said, too much menu in the guise of the Fallout franchise which eventually I grew bored with.
And Fallout New Vegas is my least liked FO game: too much green and brown colour palette (game looks like ground and shit) and a plot made of blabbering endlessly with people. And diplomacy. Fuck diplomacy.
Also not a fan of the visuals.
I have heard about Outer Wilds... but a mate spoilered me the whole game and plot while we were doing a multi session in No Man's Sky. Ahem. Bah.

CoD MW Remastered was ok, tried yesterday before going to sleep, too bad you are always having your squad mates around.
I'm more of an Halo/Destiny 2/Quake/Doom solitary run guy. Still, I'll keep looking into it.

[Blerpa]

XIII Remastered: I loved the original XIII game.
This? It feels like someone took the original game, throw some half assed shaders and hi res textures (cartoony textures) on it and called it a day.
Terrible.
Also they offer no 21:9 aspect ratio format (In 2020? Lame) and the intro of the game is the actual character watching projected on a conference hall... the original game intro.
I mean, how lazy can you be???

Shooting is fairly 2003 and audio is borked since the distances are totally wrong (you will hear closely enemies which are distant and viceversa).
It was since the time of Duke Nukem Forever that I had not experienced such a badly made game (and I didn't try the allegedly abysmal Kingdom of Amalur remaster).
As the good Cam says... Uninstalled!

[Rare White Ape]

Ha, that’s disappointing.

And people say Nintendo do lazy rereleases.

[Rare White Ape]

I’ve just started playing Half-Life: Alyx. It was on sale for half price while I was in hospital and I thought why not?

My contribution here is “What are you playing? (Injured leg edition)”

It took me half an hour to figure out how to play it in a seated position, but once I got going it’s ok to play. I had to manually map a crouch button and Steam VR’s button mapping screen is REALLY confusing. Luckily it connects with the Workshop and one of the most used custom made button layouts is the default layout with a crouch toggle added.

So I sit there on my couch, VR unit and controllers in-hand. I can’t look directly down, and I can’t peek around corners. Thankfully you can use smooth movement just like a standard FPS, and snap turning is set to 15 degrees so I’m managing ok to walk straight. If there’s an object on a table I can’t reach down to grab it, but I can crouch to reach up. I open every door this way.

Aside from my accessibility workarounds, you all know and love Half-Life. Now play it in VR. It’s so atmospheric. I walked through an underground train station near the start of my trip through City 17, and zombies with head crabs started groaning and walking towards me. Luckily they shamble slowly enough that I can pump a few rounds into them and reload my pistol (using gestures, which OWNS) without them reaching me. You can also sneak past them by crouching if they’re not paying attention and save your ammo.

Another cool feature is the gravity gloves you get almost straight away. If you see a clip of ammo on a shelf just point your hand towards it, do a flick of the wrist and it’ll fly at you, then just catch it out of the air. It’s a mechanic obviously created out of necessity of ease of use in VR but I imagine it’ll become more powerful later in the game.

So far after my three hours of muddling around I consider it a must play for owners of VR.

[Jason]

I was playing Avengers, but frankly the lack of content, bugs, and quality of life issues got to me, and it's collecting dust now. I've needed a light hearted exploration/rpg type game since "finishing" Breath of the Wild, and Xenoblade Chronicles 1 & 2. Soooooo I gave Genshin Impact a try, and I've been surprisingly impressed. It's basically a combination of those two games, and it's free to play. It seems like all the content is free, but if you want the fanciest/strongest characters to min/max high end game stuff, you might have to invest. But, if like me, you care more exploration, and doing side missions, and stuff like that, you don't need to invest much, if anything. So far the map seems just a bit smaller than BotW, and I'm enjoying the battle system of swapping between characters to have various elemental combos. So yeah, I'll be playing this until I run out of content, and by then Fenyx Rising should be out, and hopefully that's a fun game too.

[Rare White Ape]

Are you interested in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity?

It’s out this Friday.

[Jason]

I’m interested in the story bits related to BotW, unsure about gameplay... I need to watch more footage of it or something

[Rare White Ape]

Ok. There’s a demo in case you weren’t aware.

It’s the same as previous Hyrule Warriors, as well as Fire Emblem Warriors, Dynasty Warriors etc. A ‘musou’ game where you hack and slash at hordes of enemies with your overpowered characters. It’s fun.

The challenge comes with the sheer number of enemies, bosses, objectives etc. Sometimes you’ll have to kill 300 enemies within 5 minutes, or go up against 5 mid-tier bosses (moblins). Plus you can customise the equipment your characters use; upgrading weapons, load outs, armour, etc.

The map is based heavily on the BotW map so feels familiar, but in its pre-calamity state where buildings aren’t ruined yet. For example, in the central Hyrule grasslands there are ruined buildings at Mabe Village and the ranch but in Age of Calamity its a full village that you defend in the opening level, starting at the Sacred Ground just south of the castle. However it’s not open world - each level is a discrete chunk of the map, and you use the overworld map in the Sheikah Slate as a hub to dictate where you go and unlock other bonuses.

If you haven’t played the demo I suggest you give it a whirl, and your progress will carry across to the full game.

[Yw-slayer]

Genshin Impact is great, especially for free.

[Jason]

Yeah I've been blown away by it's quality, but I guess my expectations were incredibly low. "How good can a free game be?" So far it feels like a "normal" game, just with a slapped on gacha mechanic for new characters. As far as I can tell, though, you don't need the best of the best characters to play the game, but maybe only to make certain end game stuff easier? I'm doing the $5/mo subscription thing to get a couple extra ingame bucks, felt like a good compromise. I've gotten 9? Characters so far, which is more than enough to choose from. Can't imagine trying to decide between 24 or whatever.

[Yw-slayer]

Exactly. That's why it's so awesome. Basically a triple-A title but for free. And the sound is particularly good. Yes, you can spend money but it's 100% optional (at least for the main storyline).

I haven't spent a penny on it yet, though.

[MR2 Fan]

Bought MK11 Ultimate edition for PC since I watched the new MK movie and was in the mood to play MK again. I know MK11 has a ton of content and Netherrealm is decent with their story mode stuff.

I'm enjoying it so far. I also love/hate the Krypt in this one

[drew]

At the moment, Banished. Also got Death Stranding at 75% off on Steam, have only done the intro so far (so, beyond the ridiculous visuals, I have no opinion at this stage).

[SportWagon]

I heard about someone who set up their home office in a small, spare "bedroom", stuffed-with-junk.On top of their antique steel keyboard drawer they added, at first, two levels of plastic shelving, i.e. one below the laptop, and the other above it, making sort of a hutch. But later the third, and eventually the fourth, shelves appeared above that, so the extra clutter accumulating could be distributed vertically.

And then the second shelf (i.e. first one above the the laptop) got occupied by an old (getting on for ten years) small "Netbook" dual Celeron. A clamp-on power bar climbed up the tubular shelf supports to help provide power for the second shelf.(But this is supposed to be about games?)Eventually an old black slimline PS2 appeared underneath the Netbook. Early experiments with sitting the Netbook directly on top demonstrated that that definitely could upset the DVD reader. So a support was constructed from an empty old-style (flat profile) CLIF bar 12-pack box by cutting out portions of the long sides to allow the PS2 to slide inside. The DVD can't actually be changed, but the lid will lift sufficiently to allow the Monitor mode to be entered.

To ensure extra rigidity, the Netbook actually sits on top of an appropriately-sized wooden cutting-board, purchased expressly for the purpose, and placed on top of the CLIF bar box. This also gives some additional shelf space beside the Netbook.
And so this person in their off-time occasionally plays Gran Turismo 4 on the PS2 slimline which ended up on a shelf above their laptop "workstation". Gran Turismo 4 being such a time-consuming monster, this person's wife actually never approved the purchase of any succeeding games (nor the equipment required to play them). Besides they never got to 100%. Not even to 99.8. They're really not a very good player. And getting old, to boot.To start, attempts were made using an old game save to complete the S-16 license test lap of the Nurburgring (within the required bronze time). It took a while.

Despite realizing they were even worse than they had been before, this person decided to start a new (2nd) game of Gran Turismo 4, focussing first on getting their Super License. But then they got distracted by collecting all 16 colours of the Mercury Cougar you get for that. Which meant little progress on percentage, but merely repetitively entering races for profit, while overwriting the actual saves where the Super License had been acquired.

It wasn't actually until after doing that they realized in Gran Turismo 4 you could alleviate your money problems by taking the Cougar you win for getting your Super License, and entering it, even stock, in the "1000 Miles!" series of 4 long races (Bspec). So perhaps a incomplete Super License should have been saved for reference, and that strategy done first in the "main game".

Bspec allows the game to be run theoretically in the background, although doing so actually tends to be more of a distraction than you'd like to pretend it is.

[speedpimp]

Finally got around to joining Game Pass and immediately got into Wreckfest. Really fun game.

[Rare White Ape]

Yeah Wreckfest is great. It's even better with friends, and is even really nice to drive with a wheel.

[drew]

Just grabbed Anno 2205 (2015) and its season pass for $20 all-in (75% off at Ubisoft). I love the Anno games. 1800 is supposed to be getting its latest big expansion next week, I thought I'd try another "Anno" I haven't messed with previously.

I have so many Epic Games "bought" (free), I'm not sure when I'll ever get around to them....

I grabbed the Saints Row the Third Remastered a couple days ago, for nostalgia.

[MR2 Fan]

Playing Red Dead Redemption 2 again...it's so well polished and elaborate

[dodint]

For some reason, I quit that game cold turkey without even knowing it. The kid got abducted and a new chapter started and I just never turned it on again. I'm sure I'll go back to it eventually but it's funny how I played it so much and then it just disappeared.

[Tom Servo]

How necessary is it to play RDR1 to enjoy 2?

[dodint]

It's not necessary. RDR2 is a prequel there is no backstory to catch up on.

[Rare White Ape]

I think RDR1 is better anyway. It’s a more cohesive game and isn’t let down by its own bloat.

Plus it was made before Leslie Benzies fell out with the Houser brothers at Rockstar. He was arguably the driving force of creativity for RDR and GTA.

[dodint]

The neat think is you can play both.

[Tom Servo]

Heh, well, I'll try RDR2. I mostly ask because I have RDR1 and got annoyed with it and stopped playing, so hopefully I'll side with Nathan here that RDR2 is better.

[dodint]

I haven't played RDR1 yet. I hoped to play 2 and then follow up with 1. But I think I started studying for the bar exam and then never circled back to it. As the bar approached the only thing I played was Rocket League because I could play that for has little as five minutes at a time, very granular use of spare time.

[Tom Servo]

Man, that is like my life with games now. I find I rarely have hours to sit down and play something anymore, so I have all these cool games that I've never finished because the idea of having to set aside an hour or two to play some more is just too much.

Probably why I play so much Forza Horizon - you can pick up and do a race in like five minutes and then be on your way. Otherwise, it's almost always Civ because that you can play with lots of distractions.

[Rare White Ape]

One game you definitely DON’T want to play then is Train Sim World 2, which is included with Game Pass. It’s very good at simulating the world of rail transport to a very high degree, so much so that playing it is a fuckin pain in the arse. Just like a real job!

The early adventures of a city express train driver on the Cologne-Aachen line in Germany aren’t too bad. It’s as you’d expect; stop here, open doors. Close doors. Go to next station. Keep to the speed limit and be on-time.

But I thought I’d try my hand at being a diesel freight train driver hauling 40-carriage coal trains in Maryland, US of A, on a faithfully reproduced 60-mile route through the mountains. Before you get to do that, you have to shunt rail cars using a dual engine setup in the immense CSX freight yard in Cumberland. Fair enough.

However the game gives you about five minutes of tutorial on how to cold-start a single locomotive before putting you in the dual unit scenario on a completely different model of engine. Plus, it doesn’t explain how to set up one engine as the master and the other as the slave. I had to Google how to get one unit to control the brakes of the other. Before that I was hopping out of one and into the other while it was moving to release or apply the brakes :lol:

On top of that the speed limit in the freight yard is 15 mph and all the points switches are manual (no central control like those fancy inner-city greeny electric communist trains) so you’re constantly stopping to get out and switch to the correct line to shunt the railcars into. And if you’re driving at the rear, it’s likely you have to run 200 yards to the far end of the combo to switch lines.

I’m not sure how much of that I have to endure before I’m set free to deliver a load 20 miles up the line. I’m pretty sure there bits where I have to load coal into empty wagons before that. And I bet it’ll be stop-start-stop-start 20 yards at a time to load one-by-one.

Flight sims and driving sims are pretty good because you get to live out some proper fantastical shit. This train sim business though… might as well get a job in the field.

[dodint]

Now you have me wanting to dig out my Dreamcast and fire up Railroad Tycoon II.

[MR2 Fan]

I love both RDR1 and RDR2.....I was wishing they'd do a remaster of RDR1, not that it really needs it, but seeing Rockstar's track record lately....let's not.

I don't think I can download it on the playstation store though, which sucks...would need to buy a PS3 or Xbox

[Rare White Ape]

Yeah RDR1 has never been made available on anything outside of that console generation.

Apparently it plays beautifully on emulators for those consoles, if that’s your thing.

[MR2 Fan]

Yeah RDR1 has never been made available on anything outside of that console generation.

Apparently it plays beautifully on emulators for those consoles, if that’s your thing.

:up:

[sandydandy]

So I finished Godfather on PS2 a couple of weeks ago, then realized there exists a much improved PS3 version of the game called Godfather: Don’s Edition, which I had to have and found on eBay. Currently waiting for it. Two years after buying this game I finally started playing it. I'm about 3/4 of the way through. It's a HUGE improvement over the PS2 version. More missions, more cars and plus you get to hire a crew member to accompany you everywhere. You can also expand that crew to a five member hit squad to help you take down some of the higher value properties, (warehouses, hubs and compounds), which makes a helluva lot more sense compared to the PS2 game, where it's literally one guy taking down a compound by himself. The hit squad costs a lot of money, so you would have to send them home after a mission. The best part of the game for me is how you can navigate through the city easily by just picking up the phone in a safehouse and instantly travel to another owned safehouse anywhere in the city. It saves a lot of driving time, which can feel tedious in the later stages of the game.

Overall this game is much bigger and much better than the PS2 one, which I don't think I'll ever play again.

[GreatScawt]

So I've gotten around to re-installing Minecraft again and joining a server with my buddy. And I managed to get ray tracing modded in.

And let me tell ya, Minecraft with ray tracing is just phenomenal. Exploring a new land and different biomes, night and day, rain and sun... the atmosphere is just incredible.

[speedpimp]

Tetris Effect. The visuals can mess with your head.

[Rare White Ape]

They’re supposed to :p

It’s a fantastic game.

[Jason]

Started playing Horizon Forbidden West, it’s every bit as fantastic as the first, with some wonderful QOL additions. And yes, I’m playing on Story/Easy mode, because I have enough stress in my life lol

[Kchrpm]

TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, on Switch (because I already have enough controllers for 6 player) and Game Pass (for cross play with a friend on PC). It's my favorite of the recent beat em up resurgence because it gives you so many ways to move around the screen, you rarely feel slow or stuck.

I started playing the Lego Star Wars Skywalker saga when it came out a month or so ago, but haven't gone back in a while. It seems very well done, I'm just not really drawn in by Lego and never have been.

[Rare White Ape]

Both of those games are great Keef. I played TMNT on Game Pass for a few levels last week and thoroughly enjoyed it. The music is banging.

Lego SW is on sale through Steam so that has taken most of my spare time this week. It's such a great homage to the films. I'm ploughing through the films in canonical order, taking my time a little bit but mainly focussed on finishing the core story, then I'll go back and unlock all the bonus stuff afterwards. There's a heck of a lot to do!

[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...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l1rboz9CjU

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:


https://youtu.be/eTyayxbq-HY

[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. :up:

[Rare White Ape]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfcxpb5kTR8&ab_channel=DeepSilver

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.

[speedpimp]

Pretty much the same old games, just playing them on a One X now.

[Yw-slayer]

Steep is good on a huge TV.

[Tom Servo]

I tried to get back into Steep, but I can't figure out how to re-run the tutorials and I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. It actually seemed like a great way to pass time with the Steam Deck, and it runs great (if a bit of a battery killer). I just am totally lost as to what I should be doing.

[dodint]

Yeah, I downloaded Steep and did a few runs on PS4. Haven't opened it since, just wasn't fun.

[Yw-slayer]

Maybe a YouTube video oils help with the tutorials? That said, I find it hard to pull off tricks anyway.

[GreatScawt]

Still keeping up on the Forza Horizon 5 weekly exclusives.

Playing a lot of MW2 now because Shipment is back and great for leveling guns, and picked Halo back up this week because of a seasonal event that I knocked out quick via my new favorite game mode - Big Team Social.

Really want to get back into and finish Cyberpunk. And my buddy and I are running through post-level 30 Division 2 content now.

[Tom Servo]

Also still keeping up with FH5 weeklies, but just doing the bare minimum to get the exclusive cars. It's more like a chore at this point, though at least I can usually bang it out in a half hour or so.

Just picked up Persona 5 Royal and started playing it on the Steam Deck. Really enjoying it.

[Tom Servo]

Steam Sale isn't terrible right now. Picked up Elden Ring, Disco Elysium, Civ III (it was $1.50 or so), NFS: Unbound, Persona 5 Royal, and Return to Monkey Island. So far, I've only played Persona 5 on the deck, but it runs great.

[Tom Servo]

Added on NFS: Unbound, which has a really interesting mix of very realistic graphics for the cars themselves but then almost late 80's Trapper Keeper neon cartoon graphics for everything else. I'm not sure I like the game that much, but stylistically it's cool as hell.

Also, I'm old and do not understand Elden Ring so far. What's up with the ghosts? And the bloodstains? What the fuck is happening?

[Rare White Ape]

Elden Ring may be layered with the usual opaque and obtuse world building that From Software is known for.

But it is open world so you can level up and cause yourself to be rather OP, if that's the way you want to play it.

[Yw-slayer]

Riders Republic seems to better overall than Steep. Controls better, more stuff to do, more fun, more attractive design. In fairness you can only do so much with mountains and snow. Plus, jetpacks and MTBs rock.

[Tom Servo]

NFS: Unbound - did the first intro races, ended up with about $1,600. Now it looks like the only race I have available has an entry fee of $4,000. I am not actually sure how I progress beyond this.

[dodint]

Had a chain reaction of nostalgic whimsy lately. I really enjoyed Myst back when it was new. I played through Myst and Riven 25 years ago on PlayStation. I thought I kept the games but must have traded them in, probably on Dreamcast games, thinking I would not want to play a puzzle game again. I do have a copy of Myst for Sega Saturn but I'm not dealing with that.

I ordered copies of Myst and Riven on eBay as my local vintage gaming store didn't have a copy of either one, which I found surprising. Though they did have a copy of Myst III which I picked up. Myst IV was only available for the original XBox and PC. I was helping my Dad move a couch last night and noticed he had an original XBox that hasn't been plugged in for years, so he gave me that. Myst V was only available for PC so I'll probably have to just buy that on Steam eventually.

I don't have an original PlayStation anymore. Luckily all PS3s are backwards compatible to PSX, so I'm covered for Myst and Riven. I picked up a deal online for a fully backward-compatible PS3. Now I can unpack all my PS1/2/3 games and play them on one console. I don't want to connect my PS2 on account of it having wired controllers. I've been doing some reading and there is a huge knowledge base of PS3 restoration/refurb/mod stuff out there. Depending on the condition of the one I ordered I'll look into learning and performing some of those procedures. I'd like to build up an 'ultimate' PS3 to move using forward.

While going through my vintage gaming boxes I found a PS3 I forgot I had. I don't even remember why I bought a PS3 super slim, probably to use it as a streaming device back in 2013, but I found one. Too bad neither of my current PS3s can run PS2 games.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that the desire to replay a game that came out for every platform imaginable led me to picking up two new consoles and a series of games.

[SkylineObsession]

I loved Myst and Riven. Got a fair way through Myst (with Mum helping me on my first play) and went back to it a few times over the years, but never finished it. And not sure how far i got through Riven. I think/hope i still have both games tucked away somewhere.

We've got two PS Ones (someone gave away or cheaply sold a PS One to us recently because the disk lid wouldn't shut, but it just requires a bit of a knack to shut it...), Two phat PS2s and a slimline, a fat PS3 and one or two slimmer ones, an original PS4 (which annoyingly usually loses connection with the controllers and nothing other than a full restart of the console fixes it) and a PS5.

Then on the Xbox side we've got a Xbox, Xbox 360 Elite, Xbox One and Xbox One X.

Plus a Commodore 64. And a working CRT Tv to play PS1/PS2 and the Commodore on.

Some of the consoles don't work or don't work properly. It's just nice to look at them. :lol:

EDIT: And at the moment i'm occasionally firing up GT7 to do the daily k's and then shutting it down again. Bought the DLC for Assassin's Creed Origin a while back but haven't played it yet, still trying to be a completionist for the main map. *facepalm*

[Tom Servo]

Oh man, I loved Mancopter on the C64.

[Rare White Ape]

:rolleyes:

https://i.imgur.com/xiDlCHt.png

[Alan P]

:rolleyes:

https://i.imgur.com/xiDlCHt.png

6 hours in. Loving it. Will repost what I said elsewhere:

Played for another three hours this evening. Maybe saw one or two stutters and gameplay was smooth and hassle free again. I streamed on the UCUK Discord for that time too. CPU Usage was all over the place though with some cores hardly even hitting double figures for usage whereas others were very high. Never ran out of VRAM, but Usage was pretty much always over 9GB and it was using up to 20GB of System Ram.

Again I'd like some more FPS, sure, but I can't be too unhappy about it as it's smooth and consistent. Tried turning off the EA monitoring thing and it didn't make a blind bit of difference, FPS always seemed to hover between 55 & 60 FPS with a very occasional drop below this, but only very briefly. No sound issues either.

[Cam]

RWA: Good luck playing it before next year. :lol:

[Rare White Ape]

Well, I'd already planned to switch to using my phone data on a 5G connection when I got about halfway through. After that it took me 45 minutes to complete. I played for about 6 hrs yesterday as well.

I think it's pretty good, not outstanding. The opening half hour is excellent immersion into Star Wars, but once you get to the second planet that all evaporates into generic kinda-linear-but-not open-worldy stuff you'd get in any game and takes a while to feel like Star Wars again. I have faith that the game gives me the juicy stuff on later hours, as it is already being foreshadowed.

Plus the story so far is... eh? Why am I being Cal Kestis here? In the first game you had an opening chapter that spelled it all out for you: you're an Order 66 survivor in hiding and something happens to reveal your identity, then you're rescued by another Jedi and it's all on from there.

Here you start out with a different group of friends, then... (not really spoilers here) they all die? And then you find an old High Republic-era robot that belonged to a Jedi and you just voluntarily continue it's master's mission even though it's not your problem? And then some other shit happens? Seems like the game is blindly poking around in the dark for a reason to take place. It would be better if it explained more thoroughly why your old crew is split up and maybe compel you to have to rescue someone early on or something.

Performance wise, I am on a 2070 and i5 from five years ago. I've set my graphics to medium with low draw distance and no ray tracing, using AMD Super Resolution in performance mode. Screen resolution is 5120x1440 ultrawide. I get a steady-ish 35-40 FPS with no real complaints. It's very manageable. Sound seems to not sync up real well with the action in the cutscenes but during gameplay it's great. I have had three crashes while in a cut scene; the screen will freeze and ambient sound will continue. I fixed it by setting all visuals to low, low, low, low and replaying that section. Could be related to my GPU being a crashy motherfucker when it runs out of electricities when stressed, because the game shows 0% GPU usage when it freezes up.

[Cam]

My bro and I often hang out on Steam and play games together, mostly Snowrunner. We finished the latest DLC and were poking around the free games library. I downloaded Star Wars: The Old Republic. I knew it was an older game, but I never bothered with it before. I am finding it confusing and unintuitive. Too much going on. Not deleted yet, but I am considering it.

[Rare White Ape]

Yeah I can't stomach those games. The de-canonising of KOTOR and SWTOR is a big reason why chuds are upset about the Disney SW output. They froth over it.

Plus the cut scenes, while high in production quality, are incredibly simplistic and appeal to 12-14 year old males.

[Yw-slayer]

KOTOR was good. SWTOR was OK, I played it for a few months, but then couldn't be bothered.

[Cam]

I hadn’t thought about the target market for the game. Now that you mention it, the plot and dialogue do seem intended for a young audience. Trying to hit the lowest common denominator, I guess.

[MR2 Fan]

Started playing "Yakuza: Like a Dragon" a little bit....a bit weird going from full action in the older games to a RPG style stop and take turns attacking and defending style...not sure if it will keep my interest compared to the other Yakuza games.

[Tom Servo]

Ever since that last Steam sale I've been putting pretty much all of my time into Persona 5 Royal. It's a massive time suck, but really enjoying the heck out of it.

I hit that JRPG roadblock I always seem to hit where a boss shows up that I can't beat, but with a little technique and a small amount of grinding was able to get past it.

[Blerpa]

Started playing "Yakuza: Like a Dragon" a little bit....a bit weird going from full action in the older games to a RPG style stop and take turns attacking and defending style...not sure if it will keep my interest compared to the other Yakuza games.

They have split the series in two branches: Judgment is the action style one, Yakuza is now turn based and the next one will be a full fledged rpg.

[SkylineObsession]

Finally finished Shadow of the Tomb Raider last week. Spent a week or two of playing it from 10pm to 12am/1am/2am (while getting up for work at 6am...) just to get it finished and as much collectibles etc done as i can be bothered with.

Played nothing really since then, think it burned me out. Fire up GT7 every couple of weeks or less for half an hour or so.

Keep getting desiries to fire up Minecraft and go back to my fancy houses map and keep making cool (to me) houses. The Grand Designs (UK and NZ) tv shows keep giving me inspiration, and also tells me that some of my weird and wacky ideas for houses in Minecraft are actually being done in real life.

[Tom Servo]

Diablo 4's surprisingly enjoyable.

[drew]

Picked up "Icarus" a couple weeks ago. Like most games, it took me 5 minutes to find mods, and have spent the last week screwing with them.

[Godson]

I finally got around to beating Horizon Forbidden West. Man, this game was SO good. The depth early on was honestly very overwhelming, but by the end of it, I had a REALLY good understanding and feel for it.

Some of the wall climbing and battle mechanics were downright bad, but this game was otherwise just ... Excellent

[Tom Servo]

Been enjoying season two of Diablo 4. Michele and I are both at level 100 now, finally starting to understand the paragon boards, and just learned how to re-roll on rare/legendary items. I wouldn't say either of us have figured out how to be meta, but we can hold our own.

Just took down Duriel with a friend of ours for the first time and snagged some uber uniques.

I know it had a middling start, but it's actually gotten to be really fun. If anybody feels like doing the occasional online party, my username is "swervo" on battle.net.

[Tom Servo]

Desperately trying to level up my barb before they invariably nerf it next season. Managed to go from level 61 to 68 in a day - still weak at this point but occasionally hitting for 300K damage even at 68. I've only got a month, and it's game breaking and not really "fun", but I dream of hitting a world boss for 500M+ damage and one-hitting them before this season is over.

[SportWagon]

I realized some time ago that my use of www.rouvy.com using my c.2000 Brodie Romax bicycle on an Elite Direto XR direct-drive trainer, interfaced with a Samsung Galaxy Tab counts as a video game.

I even ride videos of the Nürburgring Nordschleife a lot.

The most popular such platform is actually pretty much Zwift, although Rouvy seems more popular with Europeans. There is also FulGaz and others. And most of them can be reported/logged on www.strava.com. (In addition to the sites own record-keeping).

These platforms gained popularity during lockdowns when bicycling outdoors was discouraged, although in my case I think it was more a way to get exercise without enduring the Canadian winter, or even the mild versions we've been getting recently.

I used my departmental retirement gift to pay for half of the Direto. ('Cause they sort of wanted to get me something bicycle-related but couldn't think of what).

[drew]

After 2 months of no gaming (just kind of happened that way, maybe the first time ever in 30+ years), I decided to jump into Starfield. Up to 5 hours now (wow!). Immediately dove into the mods, because, that's me.

I haven't even left the starting planet yet.

[speedpimp]

Car Mechanic Simulator 2021. It comes with a money back guarantee if you lose a 10mm socket.

[MR2 Fan]

Car Mechanic Simulator 2021. It comes with a money back guarantee if you lose a 10mm socket.

:lol:

[MR2 Fan]

Started Mortal Kombat 1 on PC after it was down to $30 on Steam sale. I like it, but I'm not sure it's that much better than MK 11 so far but I've only played it for about 10 hours so far going through the different modes and about 2 hours of the story part.

[Tom Servo]

Went to try out Path of Exile after hearing so many people compare it favorably to Diablo. It's free to play and all that, so what's the harm?

Went to try to create a character. Told that the name was already taken. Tried maybe 15 more names. They were all taken. Gave up and quit, and went online to see if there was an answer.

All characters between all accounts have to have unique names. Developer's stance is that "if they won't stick around long enough to come up with a unique name, they won't really stick around to play the game either, so screw 'em."

I tend to stick with games for a long time once I get into them. If you won't even let me in the door because you've come up with the dumbest possible requirement, well...congrats?

[Yw-slayer]

Finished Fallen Order and started Jedi Survivor.

Yup, it's FSW but the games are genuinely good. Due in no small part to their being products of Respawn.

[Tom Servo]

Right before the end of season 2 in Diablo 4, my stupidly built Barbarian is pretty much hooked up. I remember being all excited when my rogue would occasionally hit for 300K damage, my barb is now reliably doing 60M and can kill a couple of the uber bosses with one hit. I can solo Duriel, though that's usually 3-4 hits, not a single smash. Now, if only I can get Duriel to drop doombringer, we can really get the party started.

This is more fun than it has any right to be. I will be so sad when they invariably nerf this, but for now it's just a great time running up to one of the big demons and smashing them with a hammer. It is so, so satisfying.

[Rare White Ape]

I'm playing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

Yes it's an open world Ubisoft game but I got it for free, and the developer thoughtfully included a single option to toggle all of the normal open world Ubisoft game crap off so that you can just play the game without quest markers dirtying up your screen.

And it's absolutely stunning.

https://i.imgur.com/A1PA6ei.jpg

[George]

Still playing Urban Terror (www.UrbanTerror.info) occasionally, but the old-timers who've been playing for twenty years are hard to compete with.

While I certainly don't have time for more video games, I sometimes do wish I could find something new (to me), free, fast-paced and fun, and that will run on older hardware on Windows or Linux. Suggestions welcome.

My son is playing War Machine, I think it's called. It's a WWII game where he can fly planes, drive tanks, and all kinds of shoot-em-up action. I tried to download it on Steam a few months ago, but it wouldn't launch due to my old computers not having the guts to run the thing.

Surely there's something out there for those of us who don't have multi-thousand-dollar gaming systems.

I launched GTA Online recently on my PC. It runs well, but I know it's a ten-year-old game. Sadly, the Online experience was even worse than I remembered. They have a jet that can go into Stealth mode now, and all you hear is the sound of invisible (on the map) jets overhead and explosions.

And apparently the Cayo Perico heist is no longer the best way to get rich quick, so there are far fewer submarines for me to destroy in my Stealth helicopter. :lol:

[Leon]

Went to try out Path of Exile after hearing so many people compare it favorably to Diablo. It's free to play and all that, so what's the harm?



I looked at a beginners how to video on Path of Exile, after you mentioned it.

Five minutes later, my eyes had 100% glazed over. Looks a lot deeper than I'd expected, so probably isn't to me. I was expecting something more like Diablo 1... that being the only Diablo I ever played.

[MR2 Fan]

I went ahead and bought a PS5 today as I was anticipating getting it for when FF7 Rebirth comes out and the demo drops tonight.

Honestly I've been a bit obsessed with the twists and turns of the plot...also going to see Advent Children in the theater "one night only" on Feb 21st, so yes, I'm a bit hyped, I don't care what anyone else thinks! (Yes, I do own Advent Children Complete edition somewhere around my house but never saw it theatrically as I believe it was only a home release here)

[MR2 Fan]

FF7 Rebirth Demo is amazing. No spoilers but the music is especially interesting....I mean it always is, but how it's used here is....haunting in a unique way when you know what you're experiencing....extremely well done.

[drew]

After about 200 hours in Starfield (finally) and getting nowhere near completing it, I'm bored. I dabbled in Mods with it, the ship building, while clunky, is arguably the best part. But even that is limited as you run out of ways to make a ship.

One mod I used was the removal of weapon count limit. So I have a ship that's got about 45 pew-pew on it, which vaporizes anything with one trigger pull. I will shelf this one until they release the SDK, and/or fix the completely fucked cargo link system.

So now I shop for the next time-killer.

[Cam]

SnowRunner?

[drew]

The truck/delivery game? Can you run over people in it?

[Cam]

No. :lol:

[Kchrpm]

Helldivers 2 seems like a fun online co-op game, though demand is so high right now that they have limited simultaneous players.

[MR2 Fan]

I've started Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and the story changes are INSANE just in the first hour or so...can't wait to get more information but it is a LONG game...some people are easily putting 100+ hours into it with all of the side content.

[Yw-slayer]

I find it easier to watch the highlights on YouTube lol

[Cam]

Lori and I have been playing It Takes Two. It’s alright. Lori struggles a bit with the jumping and camera control. She is not really a gamer.

[MR2 Fan]

I honestly don't blame you and that's what I tend to do for a lot of games, especially when I'm multi-tasking, but this was my exception (Replying to YW)

[Yw-slayer]

Totally understand.

[Cam]

Played Art of Rally. Stylish and arcadey fun. I just used the controller, not the wheel.

[Rare White Ape]

I've played Art of Rally. I like it.

Although I don't think it's intended for use with a wheel at all. Maybe if there was an onboard camera mod...

[Yw-slayer]

Yes, it's a good game. Playable on almost any platform with almost any control scheme!

[MR2 Fan]

I never gave a proper review of FF7 Rebirth, so heregoes (NO SPOILERS)

The game is GREAT around 90% of the time with a few minor caveats.

The story is awesome and expands upon what was in Remake, BUT there are some definite confusing moments that I can't even really describe to you, including the ending.

I do LOVE how they expanded a lot of elements and added more things that make sense, from what we know of the characters. There's a very well done, emotional sequence of events that involves one of the main characters that didn't happen in the first game. It hits emotional beats VERY well and the ending does as well............MOSTLY.

The open world exploration aspect is also very good with one exception. The open world sometimes feels like it could be called "Interruption: The Game". You'll be going along on, let's say a side quest, but this thing interrupts you, while another thing interrupts you and don't forget someone also contacting you to give you info on a fiend while also your chocobo smells some treasure while two other things are also trying to get your attention. Yes, most of it is optional or that you can skip, but it still pushes you to drop everything and do what _______ is trying to get you to do.

The other thing is that some of the side missions DO elaborate a lot on the story. NOTE: I found this out by watching others playthroughs as I was pushing to get through the main story and skipped many things. ALSO: Like in the previous game, depending on your choices or answers to questions you are prompted to give, you may not get some story details.

Having said all of that, one GREAT aspect is fast travel. It's available pretty much right away and there's several options to get around the world very quickly. The developers made a lot of "quality of life" implementations that really make the game more fun.

I was curious if anyone had tried to speedrun the game and found one twitch stream where a speedrun took under 7 hours, in case you're wondering how long it takes to do all of the "main" stuff. It is sometimes tricky to know on your own how to progress the main story with so much side stuff involved.

Also, once you beat the game the first time, you get a LOT of good options upon replay, including chapter select which you can play with your existing weapons, etc.

To do everything easily could 150+ hours, including a few very involved mini-games, one being a card game and Fort Condor again like there was in the Intermission DLC from before. There are a few other simpler mini-games that are a lot of fun.

The only other sort of major complaint is the graphics settings....something to do with Unreal Engine 4 where the brightness in light areas is super washed out and while you can lower the brightness settings, that means the dark caves areas are super dark.

I'm hoping the PC version (which could come out after May of this year sometime) fixes this or people can mod it to fix it. Definitely if you're not in a hurry and assuming the PC release isn't too late this year, I'd probably wait for that one.


EDITED TO ADD: It's kinda expected at this point from Final Fantasy games but the music is EXTREMELY good throughout the game

[Rare White Ape]

Selaco is fucking awesome. It's built on a modified Doom engine. Just check this out!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgKnfXTj_H4

I normally play shooters on normal difficulty, but I advise to play it on easy mode unless you want your balls firmly punched. The enemies are able to FIGHT.