What Game Are You Currently Playing?

[Cydramech]

After last week's Ubisoft giveaway with Watch Dogs 2, I beat it after a few days. I enjoyed it, but Marcus annoyed me all the time (I'd love to just punch him through the screen) and the gameplay just wasn't polished, which led me to replay the first Watch Dogs.

Meanwhile, after years of anticipating it, after enjoying Nioh even though I've yet to beat it, and after being disappointed in the atrocity that is Sekiro (I don't care who you are, tanky controls have no place in the video game industry anymore), I finally got to play Ghost of Tsushima and it'll be another platinum in my collection in a few days (which isn't saying much).

The controls are on point; the skills and abilities are fun to use (Ghost Mode FTW); Jin Sakai himself is wickedly awesome; and the aesthetic is beautiful. It's only too bad there's no NG+ mode, but I'm definitely looking forward to additional DLC and/or a sequel.

Spoiler

(I'd even place my money on the sequel being named either Terror of Tsushima or Ghost of Japan.)

 

[thaddeus6th]

After a little break, returned to Stellaris. Still on my first game. Not doing too badly, currently 4th of 8 (and ahead of me there's an old school superpowerful empire and one that started with a massive tech boost, so not too bad).

The joy of being in Federation with dimwits is that they keep wanting wars they lose. Ironically, last time I accidentally conquered an enemy homeworld (I was just trying to even the scores so we didn't end up surrendering) which meant my empire sprawled (got too big for my admin capacity) and I ended up being horribly inefficient.

 

[Bugg]

I finally finished The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter on Friday. Fabulous ending to a wonderful story spread over the two games. The pay-offs in the last few hours were so well done. They were a slow burn at times but the wonderful characters always kept me invested. I'll miss Estelle, even though I know she and Joshua crop up in the other games in the series. Possibly my favourite female character in a game ever.

Now started Trails in the Sky The 3rd, which is a further story in the same world but with different lead characters.

 

[Rodders]

I haven't been playing anything and am getting bored with Half Life 2. I have plenty of games in my Steam Library, but nothing is calling to me. I might download Horizon Zero Dawn when it's released in Steam next month as I've been looking at YouTube videos of the back story and it is superb sci-fi.

If I survive this round of redundancies at work, I might invest in a VR set and get HL: Alyx.

 

[Toby Frost]

Half-life 2 remains excellent. Have you played the two extra parts? Apparently there are some good fan-made missions. I've played two, called Miranda and Year Long Alarm, and thought they were both quite decent.

 

[Rodders]

I’ve played and really enjoyed Episodes one and two.

I have played a couple of the fan made Mods, including Year Long Alarm.

 

[Toby Frost]

Such a shame we never got to find out what was on that ship!

I always think of Half-Life as quite a "nice" game, probably because the other characters are friendly and interesting, and I'm always surprised by the dead bodies, violence and genocide. I played Doom 3 recently and my main thought was that I wanted to shoot the stupid marine guy shouting "Hurry it up, soldier" at the start of every level.

 

[Rodders]

LOL. Nothing Nice about HL:2. Have you played the Minerva Mod? It's very good and available on Steam. (The guy the wrote the mod got a job with Valve as a result.)

I might go back to the Original Half Life.

 

[Toby Frost]

Sorry, Minerva was what I meant when I wrote Miranda above! Half Life: Miranda is the title of the BBC's light comedy about dating in an interdimensional dictatorship.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Current game of Stellaris going fairly well. Being largely peaceful, focusing on tech. I've got terraforming and can also manipulate the genes of my species so they can live anywhere (still have to put that into practice). Got lucky and encountered two other federation-style empires so we've got a union that pretty much sews up the galaxy.

On the other hand, the fallen empire is right next to me. Ironically, they're named after my first race (I'm currently playing as the Vulpae of the Serene Republic), so I'm worried about the long term prospect of a British invasion.

 

[.matthew.]

I like Stellaris but I always get sick of the late-game slog and micro, especially without a mod that lets me cleanse the alien worlds from orbit

 

[Foxbat]

Had a look at Stellaris but I'm always immediately put off when I see the phrase 'real-time'. I'm a turn based dinosaur.

 

[JadeW]

My husband and I jump back and forth between video games. So far this month, we've been playing Shovel Knight and Metal Slugs 3.

 

[.matthew.]

Had a look at Stellaris but I'm always immediately put off when I see the phrase 'real-time'. I'm a turn based dinosaur.

The key there is real-time with pause. I find it a lot more liberating and far less tedious than turn-based games when you hit that point of needing to wait for stuff. You pause to do your stuff, then let it all play out without having to repeatedly hit next turn

 

[MikeAnderson]

My girlfriend, Shelly, has been trying out The Last Of Us 2. So far, she says it's the most beautiful and technically masterful game you will NOT care about. Poor story, a forced LGTB story-line put in there just to pander to a demographic instead of adding to the universe they're trying to establish...

And this 'roid freak Abby is one of the worst "heroes" in any form of media I've seen. Sony must think people are stupid to believe a woman that steals and kills indiscriminately and in bulk (quite sadistically too) is a decent because you get to pick corn or play with a dog every once in awhile.

Too bad; the first game was not only a masterpiece of video gaming, it was a breakthrough in the over-saturated zombie genre.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Matthew, I haven't gotten it yet, but with the Apocalypse DLC you can indulge your Death Star fantasies.

I've recently expanded a bunch and, coupled with my federation starting another war, gotten a bit behind with the planet management. I think that's often the case with strategy, though, similar can happen in Civ especially if going for religious/military wins.

Foxbat, I'd strongly second what Matthew wrote in response to you. I feel much the same way on turn-based stuff but the pausing works very well so you can take your time picking research or deciding what to build on your planets.

 

[Foxbat]

Stellaris is available on GOG. I'll wait and see if it becomes available in one of their regular sales
Meanwhile, I'm still hooked on Shadow Empire.

 

[.matthew.]

Yea, I've considered Apocolypse but didn't really like the look of a lot on offer there. Plus I'd have preferred to just wipe out life on a planet and leave it for future use. In fairness to Paradox (ha) the last big patch did fix the population lag issue (made it a lot better anyway) which was the primary driving force in my quest to minimise populations

In terms of the actual gameplay, I reckon Stellaris is my favourite of their games, but have way more time in EU4 because of the time period. Still, I usually just rotate through the different series whenever I have a week to kill.

 

[Venusian Broon]

My girlfriend, Shelly, has been trying out The Last Of Us 2. So far, she says it's the most beautiful and technically masterful game you will NOT care about. Poor story, a forced LGTB story-line put in there just to pander to a demographic instead of adding to the universe they're trying to establish...

And this 'roid freak Abby is one of the worst "heroes" in any form of media I've seen. Sony must think people are stupid to believe a woman that steals and kills indiscriminately and in bulk (quite sadistically too) is a decent because you get to pick corn or play with a dog every once in awhile.

Too bad; the first game was not only a masterpiece of video gaming, it was a breakthrough in the over-saturated zombie genre.

This will get closed down if it continiues, no doubt, so I will limit my response to this post then move on. However, why is it forced? Ellie is cannonically gay, no? That was quite clear in the DLC for the first one.

Also are there any heroes in the game? I mean Ellie kills and steals indicriminately in her quest, to get revenge for Joel. (Who went through a battalion of people in the first one.)

 

[Cydramech]

With a couple of deals on PSN, I ordered two digital Resident Evil bundles, getting me most of the main-title Resident Evil games on PS4 (excluding RE7 and the unreleased RE8 title - neither of which I've any intention of ever playing - and excluding CVX, though I'll get it later). I can't believe it's been way over a decade since I last played Resident Evil 4 or Resident Evil Zero and yet it has. Completed RE4 as well as Assignment Ada and now working on Separate Ways just so I can get the Chicago Typewriter and Knight suit for Ashley in the normal campaign, and only got the 2nd tablet in Zero last night.

I'm actually surprised by how the prerendered cutscenes in RE4 look like sh*t while the actual game doesn't. I figured a "half-assed" HD remaster would be the opposite (hell, many PS1 prerendered cutscenes look better in HD than what comes out of RE4's prerendered cutscenes, and that's saying something).