What are you playing?

[Onasi]

Gods I don't get why people love ME. Or rather, I don't get why people call it one of the greatest RPG's ever made when in reality it's an action RPG at best but you can like have sex with stuff. But I also do understand it becuase the same people are the kind of people who made Skyrim sell so well, so the lesson is that literally everyone but me is wrong.

Nah, I am with you on this one. ME is a deeply flawed series that is, in retrospect, overrated as hell. The first game at least TRIED to be somewhat RPG-ish with actual delineation between classes aside from combat (though it was minimal) and the sequels are straight up cover shooters with RPG elements that are mostly vestigial. They aren’t BAD games, they can be fun, but the idea of any of them being amongst “greatest RPGs” considering how STACKED the genre is with stone cold classics is ridiculous and feels like it comes from people who started gaming on the 360 and hence have nostalgia goggles for the series.
Skyrim is an exercise in mediocrity too, yeah.

 

[phanbuey]

Nah, I am with you on this one. ME is a deeply flawed series that is, in retrospect, overrated as hell. The first game at least TRIED to be somewhat RPG-ish with actual delineation between classes aside from combat (though it was minimal) and the sequels are straight up cover shooters with RPG elements that are mostly vestigial. They aren’t BAD games, they can be fun, but the idea of any of them being amongst “greatest RPGs” considering how STACKED the genre is with stone cold classics is ridiculous and feels like it comes from people who started gaming on the 360 and hence have nostalgia goggles for the series.
Skyrim is an exercise in mediocrity too, yeah.

Yeah but you have to take into account WHEN it was released.

Like if you played Half Life today -- a 12-15 hour FPS with basic weapons/interaction/etc. You would be like "what is the big deal? How is this game Legendary status?"

For 2007 standards the writing/voice acting/story/graphics all together was pretty epic. Your dominant single player RPGs at the time were like Oblivion, NVN, and stuff like Dungeon Siege 2/Witcher 1, which was very meh - so in comparison, ME was mind blowing.

 

[SN2716057]

Life got in the way but gaming didn't. I tried some demos steam had to offer.
Steller Blade is a visual spectacle but not my cups of tea. Eriksholm was visually less rounded but I liked the atmosphere, and setting. And lastly Escape Simulator 2, a more mature looking version of the previous one, some puzzles were (too) easy some were tough. Either way the last two demos are wishlisted.

--

---

I also played the updated BeamNG.drive, a bit of Star Shitizen, and a lot of Cyberpunk 2077. Still to do: Oxygen Not Included

 

[Eva01Master]

I've just finished Split Fiction with my partner on local split-screen yesterday, found it very good.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

visually less rounded

Not too difficult. Lots of visually round in Stellar Blade.

 

[nomdeplume]

Steller Blade is a visual spectacle but not my cups of tea.

Plural.
Also ++ for misspelling to avoid frist sweep of SEO.

Note this one gives off is it was better on PS5 at release. Which still fully signals how pulled back the gaming industry is from releases we might see over there. Reasons I had for Near AU purchase are hard to find. Jiggle in 12K vs fully OC all the things 1024fps eulogy of 8-∞ bit.

 

[Apocalypsee]

Project A-spec released their V1.2.1 xdelta and when I read the changelog I saw Ferrari F50, its midnight but what the heck I want to drive this F50 NOW and so I did. Lack of sleep is worth it, they mod the car nicely into the game

 

[Vayra86]

I did like the Citadel (a populated Rama!) but that is also as far as I have gotten because the writing and story hadn't sucked me in. As for the characters people talked about how good they were and I remember thinking everyone was basically some flavour of american soldier (including the aliens), there was a robot with tits I think and that blue alien who was like a sex-alien or something. Again, it has been a while, but I distinctively remember being thoroughly underwhelmed. I do remember meeting some cool new alien and realizing "oh this is just another american soldier".


I would have to sit through the first game first though. But sure, maybe it's time for another try.

But shit, I just remembered another reason I hated the game: The dialouge wheel. I do remember a time where I was careful about what I said, and I picked the option that I wanted to say but my character said it with a completely different tone than what I had in mind. It didn't affect the dialouge, but I do remember absolutely hating it.

No you don't. Its fine to step into ME2 completely blank
The dialogue wheel.. yeah its not always a hit like that... but ME2 is again, one of the best renditions of that whole aspect as well imho.

I actually did play ME1 after 2. Kinda preferred the whole progression/levelling in ME1, but everything else was better in 2.

Nah, I am with you on this one. ME is a deeply flawed series that is, in retrospect, overrated as hell. The first game at least TRIED to be somewhat RPG-ish with actual delineation between classes aside from combat (though it was minimal) and the sequels are straight up cover shooters with RPG elements that are mostly vestigial. They aren’t BAD games, they can be fun, but the idea of any of them being amongst “greatest RPGs” considering how STACKED the genre is with stone cold classics is ridiculous and feels like it comes from people who started gaming on the 360 and hence have nostalgia goggles for the series.
Skyrim is an exercise in mediocrity too, yeah.

I didn't come from a 360, never even had one, but ME2 at the time, blew me away honestly. The story/scope was epic, the storytelling is epic, dialogue is fantastic, and characters are pretty memorable - let's compare to the recent games' cast (besides BG3) in your average Bioware game. Take the last DA, or Andromeda. The ME cast is pretty inspired in comparison I'd say. You get a confused Geth machine. You get a living ship AI... Its one sci-fi trope after the next and it fits well.

 

[RaceT3ch]

I've been going through my XBOX 360 games and been playing through them, had to get a PC version for NFS Prostreet though, disc kept erroring out.
Oh same thing happened to GRID.

FYI I'm not playing on Console, I'm emulating them on Xenia.

 

[Zazigalka]

FBC Firebreak.

 

[Cvrk]

funny you should ask ....

 

[Frick]

Bought Helldivers 2 because it looks fun, but that too is just a 3rd person action game but with some complexities to it. So back to Workers and Resources. 4% if my citizens has a radio but plenty of booze so morale is high. I also realized the trains didn't work as they should was because I had accidentally built a lenght of track with wooden sleepers instead of concrete and apparently you can't mix them.

And hey you have to research tech to show natural resources on the mini-map. That's pretty cool.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Wife: What are you doing
Me: Fishing
Wife: Why is she dressed liked that
Me: Makes catching fish easier
Wife: Sure






I don't think I've ever spent this much time fishing in a game.... It's such a pain in the @$$ to catch some of them lol.....

 

[jormungand]

Wife: What are you doing
Me: Fishing
Wife: Why is she dressed liked that
Me: Makes catching fish easier
Wife: Sure


View attachment 404863View attachment 404864View attachment 404865



I don't think I've ever spent this much time fishing in a game.... It's such a pain in the @$$ to catch some of them lol.....

but you spent that time and effort eh??

"why is she dressed like that?? is called efficiency!! she dresses right for the right job!!

 

[lexluthermiester]

t's such a pain in the @$$ to catch some of them lol.....

Be honest, you WANT to be a pain in her bum..

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Be honest, you WANT to be a pain in her bum..

The fishing mechanics are ridiculous and it's all RNG based and getting enough bait is tedious lol. Feels Gatcha game inspired lmao.

 

[Sithaer]

Be honest, you WANT to be a pain in her bum..

Well yea I aint gonna lie about that one. 'She's actually a really laid back and nice/kind character so such ideas kinda feel wrong tho..'
So far I'm having a blast with the game, the story is average-ish but everything else is top notch like damn the combat is really fun/badass and actually it has some depth to it and the soundtrack is amazing as expected after Nikke which also has a killer soundtrack in general.
She is the real Eve/model of her:
https://www.instagram.com/zennyrt/

Btw its nice to see your old Agent Smith avatar back, I've always linked you with that one. 'Now we just need to have a Neo around here..'
O ye for any Stellar Blade players who might experience some CPU limited scenarios in Xion or in the big open world areas, theres a very simple drop in ini tweak that gave me a solid ~15-20 FPS boost with my 12600KF:
https://www.nexusmods.com/stellarblade/mods/17?tab=posts&BH=1
And no it did not make the game look worse or anything either, for once this mod does what it says.

The fishing mechanics are ridiculous and it's all RNG based and getting enough bait is tedious lol. Feels Gatcha game inspired lmao.

Their other main game is a gacha so its about right that they know a thing or two about such mechanics. 'Its still one of the most generous gacha game on the market tho..'

Other than benching/testing my new 5070 in the past week I've been playing Nikke/Wuthering Waves and ofc Stellar Blade, they all had some big updates recently so I'm having a busy time trying to stay up to date with everything.
@jormungand
Nikke EVE is also something else..

Spoiler: Nikke EVE

And this is her max limit break lobby which is animated.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Well yea I aint gonna lie about that one. 'She's actually a really laid back and nice/kind character so such ideas kinda feel wrong tho..'
So far I'm having a blast with the game, the story is average-ish but everything else is top notch like damn the combat is really fun/badass and actually it has some depth to it and the soundtrack is amazing as expected after Nikke which also has a killer soundtrack in general.
She is the real Eve/model of her:
https://www.instagram.com/zennyrt/

Btw its nice to see your old Agent Smith avatar back, I've always linked you with that one. 'Now we just need to have a Neo around here..'
O ye for any Stellar Blade players who might experience some CPU limited scenarios in Xion or in the big open world areas, theres a very simple drop in ini tweak that gave me a solid ~15-20 FPS boost with my 12600KF:
https://www.nexusmods.com/stellarblade/mods/17?tab=posts&BH=1
And no it did not make the game look worse or anything either, for once this mod does what it says.

I've actually enjoyed the side character missions a lot even though it's pretty bleak. I really like the combat as well.

Performance has been pretty good for me but I'm just hitting my monitors cap which is only 175hz other than very rare stuttes here and there but never during combat. I got to say this is the best UE engine game I can remember from a general performance standpoint outside of The Coalition over at M$ who makes Gears of War.

 

[Princess Garnet]

I'm finished with Spyro 3, so that concludes the Reignited trilogy. I was really fun to finish the original trilogy after all these years, especially since I only ever owned the first one and played/seen parts of the second one. I found out I mostly disliked the second one and really loved the third one. I'm really loving these updated remakes of games from that era and want more (ahem... one in particular...).

If I had to list a weakness of the third one, it would be that it felt just a little too muted in the boss battles, but just a little. The villains were alright (not as good as the second one), but the battles felt too flat. I'm not even sure what they would have needed to make them better because they all did interesting things. I hesitate to say difficulty because I was complaining that the finale of the second one especially was frustrating... but I never liked or did well with the flying parts so I'm biased against that one.

What was fun was getting revenge on this bear!

Here's how I finished. I don't have a "fear of missing content" that makes me spend time chasing 100% in things I don't enjoy, so I'll probably be leaving it at this. I had fun with what I did.

I completed everything in the first one, minus the "do all four tasks in the flying levels in one go", so it's my most completed.

The second one had a lot of things I had to skip.

In the third one, I was able to either 100% every level or fall just short and miss one egg (which would result in somewhere between 91% and 93%). The exception was one level in which I missed 4 of the 6 eggs. I also never even entered any of the flying ("speedway") levels at all because... I don't like them. Otherwise, I'd probably have similar completion rate on the third one as I did in the first one.

Also, I somehow got 20 extra gems in one level? I don't know if that's a bug.

The credits were fun. The first one reminded me of Doctor Tot from Final Fantasy IX because of the globe with a philosopher vibe.

I'll probably start Post Trauma next since I get the impression it's short and I picked it up right around the time Clair Obscur launched, which sidelined it.

 

[Vayra86]

So... I've spent the last week or so playing Tainted Grail Fall of Avalon.
First impression was: this is like Oblivion except darker.
Current impression is: this is exactly like Oblivion except darker, and holy shit so much better.

Play this going in with an Oblivion expectation frame and you will be very pleasantly surprised.
Combat is better, but retains the freeform clunkiness and weird shit you can do (positioning to exploit enemy attacks missing you, kiting, etc.) in Oblivion... and you need it to survive quite often too.
Magic is leagues better.
Stealth / AI is better.
Quests are highly original and side quests can be straight up epic, multiple outcomes depending on performance/choices, etc. Lots of nice surprises.
Voice acting is leagues better.
The backstory/narrative goes from feeling weird and slightly cheesy to ever more 'in place' and supported by the game world.
It looks nicer than Oblivion remastered.. and runs (a bit ...) better.
It has bugs and weird shit going on, but it barely if ever breaks your game (and we can save scum ofc)
Bodies can fly!
The night is a threatening environment for some extra tension and bucketloads of XP... there is no progression gating in that sense, if you want to farm forever, you'll be levelling to max.
The game world is absolutely packed with secrets and little things to find. There's also huge stretches of empty land, I think just for immersive purposes.

The list goes on. But damn. Play this shit if you are looking for your open world questing fix again. I think I'll spend another 40 odd hours to finish the whole thing, with a good 30 spent.

Also... yes you can create totally broken shit. I figured I'd 'hold' at 66% magical crit chance... diminishing returns and all that. But the freedom in building your char, hybrid or as focused as you want... is limitless. You also get showered with respec potions. Once I have enough levels to do so, I'll be upping Dexterity for a Rogue/Mage hybrid I think.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

No you don't. Its fine to step into ME2 completely blank
The dialogue wheel.. yeah its not always a hit like that... but ME2 is again, one of the best renditions of that whole aspect as well imho.

I actually did play ME1 after 2. Kinda preferred the whole progression/levelling in ME1, but everything else was better in 2.


I didn't come from a 360, never even had one, but ME2 at the time, blew me away honestly. The story/scope was epic, the storytelling is epic, dialogue is fantastic, and characters are pretty memorable - let's compare to the recent games' cast (besides BG3) in your average Bioware game. Take the last DA, or Andromeda. The ME cast is pretty inspired in comparison I'd say. You get a confused Geth machine. You get a living ship AI... Its one sci-fi trope after the next and it fits well.

- WRT the Mass Effect Trilogy, I think a big part of the lure is that it feels like one of those early 2000's Sci-Fi Channel Mini-Series. It's a little janky and its a little rough around the corners, but it has a heart and does an incredible job transporting you to a different place. Same vibe and aura as stuff like Farscape, Stargate, BattleStar Galactica, Babylon 5, Deep Space 9 etc... space opera stuff.

If syndicated sci-fi was your jam growing up, the Mass Effect trilogy is like coming home.

If anything, I wish more of the side missions were a bit more fleshed out and treated like "monster of the week" self contained plots and narratives, rather than everything tying back into the main plot.

 

[Sithaer]

- WRT the Mass Effect Trilogy, I think a big part of the lure is that it feels like one of those early 2000's Sci-Fi Channel Mini-Series. It's a little janky and its a little rough around the corners, but it has a heart and does an incredible job transporting you to a different place. Same vibe and aura as stuff like Farscape, Stargate, BattleStar Galactica, Babylon 5, Deep Space 9 etc... space opera stuff.

If syndicated sci-fi was your jam growing up, the Mass Effect trilogy is like coming home.

This is pretty much how I also feel about the ME trilogy, I've grew up on such sci-fi shows 'Stargate is my fav' and the first time I've heard about and played ME it was one of the best gaming expriences I've had and so far I've finished the entire trilogy 3 times and I have plans for doing another run at some point.
I really love its lore and the whole world they built, I've literally read the entire Codex in the game cause I was interested in knowing more about the world of the game.

Personally I've also enjoyed Andromeda cause to me anything in the ME universe is worth playing even if its just a spin off/side game but if treated simply as a sci-fi game it was totally fine imo.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Can someone who is playing Stellar Blade actually describe or define the kind of game it is? Hack N Slash? Souls Like? Shooter? DMC?

The game has been such a focus of the Anti-Woke narrative at this point, focusing on the main character's assets and appearance, that I realized that no one ever actually talks about the gameplay and what kind of game it actually is.

 

[Sithaer]

Can someone who is playing Stellar Blade actually describe or define the kind of game it is? Hack N Slash? Souls Like? Shooter? DMC?

The game has been such a focus of the Anti-Woke narrative at this point, focusing on the main character's assets and appearance, that I realized that no one ever actually talks about the gameplay and what kind of game it actually is.

I'm playing it tho due to being busy with other games and whatnot I only have around 10 hours of gameplay in it currently.
Its more of an action RPG with souls like elements and the game is mainly story driven with a heavy focus on cutscenes. 'Kinda reminds me of how Darksiders 3 played, its a mix of various types'

Gameplay is pretty solid imo, nothing ground breaking but its definitely more of a game than just a fan service low effort thingy. 'Animations are also well made same as the soundtrack'

 

[harm9963]

Returnal​