What are you playing? (games)

[juansolo]

Just ordered that. Never even heard of it then ACG reviewed it and it looked right up my street. Came out of nowhere! Looking forward to it landing.

[selfdestroyer]

Finally found something I want to play.

This looks great. I watched a little bit of a game play video on YouTube but just for a second, I did not want to spoil anything. Looks like Skyrim with an emotional story. Count me in!

I am still playing The Division 2 on PC, PS4 and Diablo 3 on the switch.

[juansolo]

Thought it'd be amusing to do a pickups pic... Yeah I buy some weird stuff.

[juansolo]

Almost forgot my classiest purchase by far!

The Rez 'Special Package' (as it was sold in Japan, and only Japan for reasons that are soon to become apparent...). sadly it's missing the special package cover and it's not the Japanese version of the game. However this is the first, and as far as I'm aware only game, to be sold with a, errrm, vibrator attachment. Now it's creator tries to sell it like those old bass transducer things but for a video game, but he's fooling no one what it's actually for. Look under Trance Vibrator for a deeper explanation of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rez

Anyhow, I got it super cheap and just couldn't resist.  ...I also washed it SUPER thoroughly just in case...

[alanp]

John no hentai.

[selfdestroyer]

Just did the first chapter in A Plague Tale: Innocence. So far it's very interesting. I will definitely continue playing this, the characters and visuals are great so far.

[Invertiguy]

I jumped back on Fallout: New Vegas again today. It's kinda become a yearly ritual at this point, with probably a dozen playthroughs and over 2500 hours under my belt, god help me. Luckily there's always new mods to keep it fresh.

[alanp]

The story in FNV is so good and compelling... I tried to get back into FO3, but after it crashed my be-bothered-ness got up and went. Obsidian's KOTOR game was just as compelling, for me.

As for which faction to support? Mr House, I think. Everyone else is like, we're hanging on, we're surviving, let's get past this... while Mr House is the only one with an actual goal, vision, and a solid plan to get there.

[Invertiguy]

The story in FNV is so good and compelling... I tried to get back into FO3, but after it crashed my be-bothered-ness got up and went. Obsidian's KOTOR game was just as compelling, for me.

As for which faction to support? Mr House, I think. Everyone else is like, we're hanging on, we're surviving, let's get past this... while Mr House is the only one with an actual goal, vision, and a solid plan to get there.

I tend to gravitate towards Yes Man. No gods, no masters! I do help the NCR out without actually siding with them, as their citizens' hearts are in the right place, but their endemic corruption and imperialistic tendencies need to be curbed if they are to succeed as a nation, and I feel like being denied the Mojave without being utterly destroyed is the right kick in the pants they need to turn inwards and reexamine their priorities as a nation. As for Mr. House, sure he talks a big game, but looking at the state of every part of New Vegas that's not the strip shows you where his priorities really lie. In the end,  he's just another egotistical jackass who fancies himself a god (even if he denies it, his attitude says it all) when he's really just a shriveled abomination in a tube who should have died with the rest of the old world. I take a special pleasure in caving in his head with a golf club after pulling him out of his stasis chamber to remind him that he is just a man after all, and all men must die (plus, I love the Bioshock reference).

[juansolo]

John no hentai.

I have a couple of Senran Kagura games. Peach Beach Splash (kinda like Splatoon crossed with Mario Sunshine) and Estival Versus (Dynasty Warriors type stuff). Which are both actually really good games... Honest... But that's as close as I get to Hentai. More fan service than anything else.

[somnif]

I was gifted a copy of Just Cause 4 for my birthday this past weekend.

I adored JC2, and JC3 was ridiculous fun, but JC4?

Kind of a let down really. The art work is not great (some of the character models have a real dead-eyed-puppet thing going on), the story is less punchy, none of the characters are as memorable or likeable (even Rico is less charming), and even the gameplay itself just feels a bit... less.

Its gone back to a JC2 style "chaos" meter for unlocking stuff, but with JC3's territory model, and it doesn't really gel. In JC2 you'd just unlock missions by causing chaos, and in JC3 you'd liberate territory by actually... liberating it, clearing out towns and destroying bases and whatnot.

Now you "send out squads" from an options-screen map and just click to open a new area, with chaos being how you generate new squads. Its a clunky system that doesn't really feel as involved.

As for characters, instead of the hilariously over-the-top Di Ravello of JC3, you just have... a dude in a suit (with his creepy uncanny valley face). Of your allies, none can really compare to Sheldon, or Mario, or Dimah. They're just like, the people who happened to be standing near by in the first town when shit went down, no connection to Rico. (There is one coked-out Hollywood producer that is mildly amusing, but mostly as a one-off gag, not sure how I will deal with them in the long term. )

And they've kinda muddied up the controls. Your grapple hook now has so many attachments and settings that its easy to fumble finger things trying to figure out wtf the situation needs at the moment.

I'm only a few hours in, maybe it will even out a bit further on, but for now it just seems such an odd step backward.

[alanp]

It has started to devolve into endless waves of idiots being thrown at me, boss battles a la Devil May Cry or whatever, and both of those annoy the piss out of me. (I leave the Top Dog sites until last in any zone, if I can manage.)

Just Cause 3 was on special, so I bought it from the Steam Store.

Hugely fun!

Although... you can tell it's an Avalanche Studios game, because they do the same thing they did with Mad Max -- want to ramp up the difficulty? Just throw endless waves of nonstop goons at the player!

[mjg]

I think I can finally put down Legend of Zelda: Breath of the wild.    I attempted to find all of the collectable Koroks in the game.  I got about 880 of the 900, so I'm pretty happy with that.  Total time played is about 390 hours now. 

We've been trying Unravelled 2.  Good fun for two players in the first half, but then the difficulty seemed to ramp up to finicky annoying levels.  Usually ended up with me shouting at the tv. 

[alanp]

Fired up Rocksmith 2014 and dug up my USB - 1/4" cable that came with it. (No, I didn't get the special edition that came with a real guitar...)

Firstly, I had forgotten how bad I am at actually playing guitar. I can do open chords, and that's about it. Secondly, I'd forgotten how long it's been since I actually practised.

I had also forgotten how fast the game is to ramp up the "Dynamic Difficulty" -- play without screwing up too badly for a minute, and the game will immediately start lumping more notes and more strings in, at which point my fingers knot themselves in a panic.

[Willybomb]

I got Rocksmith 1 the day it came out, and I have 2014 remastered too.  SOOOOO much DLC and ODLC available for it.

Turn the dynamic difficulty off and slow the song down, no point half learning a song just to find out it's been dropping 6 notes in between notes.