What Game Are You Currently Playing?

Foxbat said:
Watched a video of Starfield (I noted that in said video, the bad guys were tagged as Raider Scum and I immediately thought of Fallout).

Looks very good but the tech specs are too high for my PC. I'd need a new processor, video card, more RAM and SSD ( I'm currently running on HDD). I'm afraid my days of buying (or even significantly upgrading) a computer just to run one game are long gone so I doubt if I'll get to play it anytime soon (unless my PC catches fire and I have to buy a new one...hmm, where's that insurance policy....).
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Yeah, I'm just on the edge of being able to play it. I do have a SSD drive, but it's tiny (and basically just holds the operating system and Microsoft basics.) So I'm running it on HDD. I think I'm helped by the fact that I've got a lot of RAM - 24G - and my processor and graphics card were top notch in 2015-17 when I built this PC up! So I can play Starfield.

I haven't scared myself with the price of getting a new PC that exceeds current specs (the only way to future proof your computer, get the best specs you can possibly get...) but I probably start to need looking, my DELL XPS 8700 is about 8 years old, which is geriatric for a PC.
 
My PC has 8G and the video card has another 4. My processor is AMD Ryzen 5 4500 6-Core @ 3.60 GHz and I have no idea how good or bad that is today but I fear I would probably struggle. A shame because it looks like the game would appeal to me.

It makes me wonder what Elite would be like if it were done by Bethesda.:)
 
Foxbat said:
My PC has 8G and the video card has another 4. My processor is AMD Ryzen 5 4500 6-Core @ 3.60 GHz and I have no idea how good or bad that is today but I fear I would probably struggle. A shame because it looks like the game would appeal to me.

It makes me wonder what Elite would be like if it were done by Bethesda.:)
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Yeah, I'm afraid it probably would struggle. Your processor looks about the same as mine - I've got an Intel i7 which operates at about the same level, whereas my graphics card is twice as big, and have three times the RAM as stated above...and that all just scrapes above the minimum level stated to run the game!

I've bought games in the past, been excited to get stuck in, then, have it freeze in the opening startup screen because I just didn't have enough computer power.

Regarding Elite and Bethesda, that is probably what disappointed a certain type of gamer when they looked at Starfield - those that play Elite Dangerous or 'play' Star Citizen - both of which are hard-nosed space-sims. They wanted to fly their spaceship just everywhere, through atmospheres, over the planet surface, between planets. But Starfield just doesn't work like that - you jump from one instance to another via a loading screen. So...it's more like EVE online, in the way that it makes you jump about space into smaller volumes where a certain event or object exists.

But then Starfield is a first-person RPG, not a multiplayer MMO, and its focused on other things than a complete space-sim experience.
 
Shadow Empire received a big update yesterday - not only fixes but significant changes to gameplay. It’s tougher than ever with the AI providing a much more dangerous opponent. It took me months to get grips with the logistics and economic models but all these changes have put me back to square one. The biggest problem (like almost all 4X) was the endgame but it will be a long time before I find out if there is improvement there. They way it’s going, I’ll be lucky to survive until the endgame.
 
I've been playing Dragon Age for a while, and I'm getting an overwhelming feeling of "meh" from it. It's very well made, but it's sub-Tolkien fantasy, without much in the way of innovation. There's something slightly drab and un-fun about it all, which I find hard to pin down. A horde of not-orcs has attacked the land, and you've got to get the elves and dwarves on your side and... it just feels slightly stale. Which is a shame, as it's a good game. If only there was something more original to it, even jokes or Warhammery grimness.
 
Sniper Elite 5.

Not my usual kind of thing (it's a WW2 shooter), but surprisingly good fun.
 
A game called Kena: Bridge of Spirits was on sale on Steam. It's a pleasant-looking adventure that reminds me of both Studio Ghibli and the Fable games in looks. You are a little person whose job it is to collect porg-like spirits and, er, carry them around or something. It's fairly charming, but it's also quite hard. Since I don't play games to be irritated (if I wanted to be annoyed, I'd go into the real world), I might not persist with it. That said, it's not bad at all.
 
I've just finished Sea of Stars... I think. Of late I have a hard time trusting end credits. It's a fun, fairly easy retro-style JRPG the can be finished fairly quickly so it doesn't outstay its welcome. Recommended.

I think next I'll be going back to Horizon: Zero Dawn. I didn't get too far into it before I got distracted by FF7 remake.
 
Rule The Waves 3 has just had an update that adds a few new features so I'm back playing Japan beginning in 1890.

By 1891, I'm in a full blown war with China. Things were looking a bit dodgy until numerically superior China suffered its very own PQ17 moment. A convoy was being protected by two pre-dreadnought Chinese battleships and I only had one capital ship and a light cruiser. I lured their capital ships away to chase my pre-dreadnought and steamed all ahead full straight into the convoy with my light cruiser. A dozen merchant ships were sunk and both my ships escaped to give me my first major victory of the campaign.

Latest information from intelligence sources are that China is looking for a way out of this war.
 
Just making a start on Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the new CRPG from Owlcat (who make the Pathfinder games).

 
I reloaded Morrowind, an old Bethesda fantasy game. Morrowind stands out to me because it's weird - it's not a Tolkien rip-off, and has its own strange logic. I suppose that, back then, it was financially viable to include strange and original things, and you didn't have to worry if you lost the Chinese market because there weren't enough dragons or whatnot. It's pleasant to just wander around, looking at the strange buildings, taking a taxi ride on a giant flea, and so on. Unfortunately, it's also very clunky, and needs to be quite heavily modded before it becomes good rather than entertainingly odd.

I also had another go on Sunset Overdrive, a fun game that gave me a lot of entertainment when I played it earlier this year. It was nice to play something that had interesting mechanics and silly things to do and didn't take itself too seriously. However, the difficulty remains very uneven, and I have still reached a point where progressing is impossible. I've said it many times, but I don't play games to feel angry and frustrated, so I'm giving up on Sunset Overdrive again. I am surprised to find that this makes me feel vaguely sad.
 
After getting it many years ago in a sale, I loaded up L.A. Noire. It's L.A. Confidential the game, changed just enough but really not very much. You play Ed Exley a righteous, by-the-book cop who is clearly going to get himself into a lot of trouble. There's a bit of running about and shooting, but the real meat of the game is looking at crime scenes and interviewing suspects. It is quite a slow, measured game so far, and feels very different. Even compared to games like Bioshock and The Last of Us, which claim to be intelligent and story-based, L.A. Noire feels like an intellectual exercise (there's even a reference to The Big Sleep in the first case you do as a detective). So far, I like it.
 
I couldn't get into LA Noire. I had it back when I had it on PS3 and I did like it to an extent but soon gave up on it.
It just felt too much on rails for me but maybe I just didn't give it a good enough chance to shine.
 
It is very much on rails, and more like the old Blade Runner adventure game than games like Grand Theft Auto. The option to "explore" the city is a bit false. Some of the cases do feel too dependent on the order you do things, especially in questioning witnesses, where you only get one go (which strikes me as unrealistic). I must say that I find some of the questioning extremely difficult, especially in choosing between the "doubting" and the "accuse of lying" options, but that might just be me. I wonder how well I'd do at the Voight-Kampf test.
 
I've been playing Sniper Elite 5, which i have enjoyed a lot. This long weekend i played through the DLC. There's a mission where you take out the German carrier, The Graf Zeppelin. The detail is phenomenal and i really enjoyed playing this level.

I'm not too sure what to play next. I have a hankering to replay Horizon Zero Dawn again.
 
LA Noire is still really good, although perhaps because of the setting and style I'm inclined to let it off a bit lightly. It is very engrossing, and has to be played pretty slowly and carefully. There is some surprisingly nasty gore (the Black Dahlia murder gets mentioned a lot) and you can't do well without thinking a lot. As a result, it feels like a pretty grown-up sort of game. There are definitely problems, though: some of the deduction isn't very intuitive, and there are a few moments where it doesn't quite make sense. In one case, I couldn't tell whether the "right" answer - ie the one the game rewards you for - was to be corrupt and frame a villain who seemed to be innocent, or to remain honest and refuse to do so. It's a real oddity, and I like it quite a lot.
 
I’ve tried to get into Dwarf Fortress but it always ends up feeling like I’m working an unpaid job.
 
Yay! Xmas run of Factorio got to a rocket launch. And hence managed to add the "So long and thanks for the fish", as well as the "Tech Manic" achievements to those that I've done in the past.

I have managed to 'beat' the game once before, but this time I paid much more attention to actually making a good main bus, therefore getting the higher science packs and some of the horrendously expensive bits was much quicker and a bit less painfull.

Will probably keep going a bit to get some of the low-hanging achievement fruits that I can still go for.

Still, I'm sure I'm just not doing some of the best set-ups for a lot of production. And didn't do much with drones. Probably need to study at the university of Factorio on Youtube....
 
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