What Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Toby Frost]

Cyberpunk 2077 continues to be really good. It makes some wisedecisions as to what should be micro-managed and what shouldn't. Your character automatically heals after fights. Ammunition is one of only four sorts. Your grenades and health kits have endless uses, but take time to recharge. Your car/bike takes damage, but repairs itself given time, and will show up automatically if you summon it. All of these could have led to tedious busywork, and simplifying them is a very good idea.

The characters are good, and the lack of non-humans makes the setting feel more realistic. It feels like a game for adults, partly because you shoot gangsters in a variety of sleazy cyberpunk bars, nightclubs and drug dens, but also because the characters and setting feel deep and complex. I've killed numberless hoodlums, but I've also been to two funerals, helped someone solve a mystery, and tried to agree a truce between warring clans. Good stuff.

 

[Foxbat]

I've started another game in the Avernum RPG series (this time Avernum: Escape From The Pit).
I got pretty far in Avernum: The Crystal Souls but found that as all the subquests appear to be done and the storyline narrows in on the main quest, I didn't want to go any further. The problem was combat. It's just so tedious and I don't mean in the mouse click sense but it is also tactically inane. Physically, you have two tactics - melee or ranged weapon. There are a range of spells for mages and priests but, along with the physical fighting, they all do one simple thing - chip away at an enemy's hit points. Sure, you have other spells (speed, shielding, blessing etc) but all they do are enhance your own defence or increase your action points, and those are all inextricably linked to the simple task of enemy hit point erosion. You don't have to think. You just have to click.

You can just have everybody pretty much stand in the same spot round after round (after round...) just chipping away. Perhaps every two or three turns using heal spells of potions to keep your warriors nice and healthy.

All this is not just about the Avernum games, it's applicable to just about every single isometric RPG I've ever played. What it means in real terms is that I think from now on, I'm not even going to try and finish RPGs. Instead, I'll just stop in the later stages and accept that it was good while it lasted.

It's early days in Escape From The Pit and I'm enjoying exploring the world but I'm ready to call it quits when that most foul of beasts the Tedium Demon appears.

Also spending some time playing Capitalism Lab. Economics is an art much darker than necromancy.

 

[Rodders]

Getting a bit bored with the Sniper Elite series now, so reloading Metro 2033 (which i have played before, but got stuck at a bit where you need to shoot up a train) and Metro: Last Light, which i haven't played before.