whatchu playing now

you know the drill. post what you are currently playing. add whatever else you goddamn please ;-)

bioshock inf 2nd dlc - a bit of a let down, elizabeth's story is so muddled and confusing.
orcs must die - this game is pretty fun!

I (and, ostensibly, my girlfriend, who mostly only plays the pinball stuff I bought for her) just bought a PS3 a couple of months ago, which I'm completely new to aside from crashing helicopters into gas stations in GTA IV at my brother's. So I've been excitedly hoarding games, since this seems to be the sweet spot between when previous-gen system come way down in price and when they go out of print and skyrocket. But I'm trying to be restrictive in my playing so that I don't play eight million things at once and fail to fully appreciate the varied experiences.

Althought I was completely put-off by it at first (complicated tutorials maybe shouldn't take place in the middle of combat under cover of darkness), probably 75% of my game playing time of late has been devoted to Just Cause 2. So much addictive fun, and great for brief, post-work mayhem sessions. Strangely haven't read or heard a whole lot about it outside of ILG threads, so thanks for that, y'all. Prior to that, I was mostly sucked into Skyrim, which initially impressed and then subsequently overwhelmed me with its breadth. I mean, I'm level 25-ish and realized recently that I'd completed somewhere pretty far south of 10% of the core game, so it feels like a thing that could just go on forever. I'll return to it someday when I'm ready to really dig in.

Other stuff in my current rotation:
Fez (not hugely into platformers but I'm really digging it; music and design and use of color are aces)
Minecraft (kinda don't know exactly what to do with it yet, but it's cool to mess around with)
Arkham Asylum (not crazy about the combat, but maybe I'm just not used to it yet; the beginning of the Scarecrow encounter was amazing)
Where Is My Heart? (cute, cool concept, good for short bursts)
Portal (just started this...the rest of the Orange Box is backburnered for the time being)
Deadly Premonition (not terribly far into it; definitely bizarre as hell but I'm undecided just yet as to whether it's my kind of bizarre)
Prototype (love it to bits; I think I'm near the end so I've been sitting on it for a little while to prolong the love...although I do already have the sequel)
Resident Evil 3 (revisiting after 15 years; controls are for shit but I'm building up anticipation to RE4)
Walking Dead (only played the first episode thus far but it was great and I'm looking forward to more)

I also have a ton of stuff that I've played <15 minutes of (The Saboteur, Tomb Raider reboot, Marvel Ultimate Alliance) that I'm looking forward to jumping into more fully soon.

Kinda want to make a (sadly & ridiculously long) list of the stuff I've acquired and get recommendations of what to tackle next.

MPQ and GTA5, exclusively, for ages now. Very very reluctant to start a new game atm

rotation of dark souls 2 on ps3 and might & magic X and magic online on the laptop. nearly done with mmx and think i am going to finally play monaco. nearly done with ds2 but just going to keep playing it anyway.

diablo 3 on pc! oh nooo

I thought of something else I played recently: WSOP Full House Pro poker on xbla.

I am in a bad place. ;-)

GTA5 in the evenings, still searching for those hidden items
Or Lego City Undercover on occasions.

Any other time I struggle to find time or energy to play anything else right now, I'm trying to design and develop my own games and I find that a struggle in itself.

Games that I *should* be playing anyway...

Pinball FX, really really should fire this up more often
Rayman, not even installed this yet
Red Dead Redemption (still not bothered to attempt the final mission)
Fallout3, embarrassingly never finished this either
Fuel, after having to purchase new PS3 I'll have to start all over again.
Just Cause 2, dropped off the radar a bit, dip into every now and again to get that 100% status
Minecraft/FTB, my only reason for not playing this more often is its just too daunting. In terms of time wasting goes this is the mother of all. FTB packs have basically kicked this game into mind blowing status imo.

(With the exceptions of Pinball and Rayman you might notice a distinct pattern in the games I like)

picked up gta 5 again just to round off the epsilon missions. i was convinced there would be a big heist at the end of all of it, because ripping off the scientologists seemed to make sense and how else would i ever get the cash to buy the golf course etc. so the only one getting ripped off was me :( officially done with this game.

also just finished xcom enemy unknown which i loved to bits. besides it was just long enough to keep my interest through the whole thing.

not really sure what to go with next. ps+ gave me lots of options. i'll probably get going on tomb raider, as soon as i stop struggling to like pes2014.

dayZ and nothing but dayZ. the slow small little updates that come out every couple of weeks just make it that little bit more appealing every day. i try not to think that's there's no real goal or 'end' to it.

Dude, FRACT OSC is out. It's fun, but giving me a lot of flashbacks to Myst, due to heavy puzzles with occasional symbolic language hints. You're exploring this long abandoned machine world and you restoring operation to a giant synthesizer that you wander around in.

SMT4, the soundtrack for this game is so good, running around a post-apocalyptic Tokyo to synthy krautrock <3 http://youtu.be/SG_gB4kb2oA

Oh, FRACT sounds great, might have to grab that.

The only thing I'm playing at the moment is Letter Quest on my ipod. It's quite good but nothing mindblowing.

portal 2 (3rd time), ni no kuni, assassins creed 4, dork souls

FTL and could be on this for a while now that I feel like I finally understand how to play it

im obsessed

so many ships still to unlock and haven't even touched advanced mode...

I've been playing Kingdom Of Amalur, a game that apparently lost the taxpayers of Rhode Island $75m, recently. I kind of hate myself as it's another massive Skyrim-style time sink, but it's quite good fun.

what IS advanced mode

i havent even begun boarding as a tactic yet

sorry "advanced edition"

As a reminder, FTL: Advanced Edition is a free content expansion for FTL. All current (and future) customers will receive this update regardless of where they purchased it. Prior to release, we will post detailed instructions on how to get the update from whatever digital vendor you originally purchased FTL.

http://www.ftlgame.com/?page_id=106

New systems (clone bay??), new race, new ships, just lots more stuff, and it was released as a free sort of patch. It's a toggle option when you start a game, you can choose standard or advanced.

I've been playing Kingdom Of Amalur, a game that apparently lost the taxpayers of Rhode Island $75m
― Yuri Bashment (ShariVari), Thursday, April 24, 2014 3:45 PM

ah yes the curt schilling rpg

oh yeah i'm playing dragon's dogma. i've given up on it twice before so i'm determined to finish it this time. the controls are lacking but it has some of the best gfx i've seen in an rpg. makes dark souls 2 look like shit by comparison anyway.

http://cdn.destructoid.com//ul/266639-curt-shilling.jpg

dragon's dogma was good fun, at its best early before everything becomes too easy, so i encourage you to not progress the story at all until you have been everywhere. one of the best and most unique things it has are the giant wandering monsters that really felt like epic fights, at least until my gang quickly got OP'd. helps if you resist the temptation of the broken pawns that are available early.

infinity wars + starbound

helps if you resist the temptation of the broken pawns that are available early.
― Roberto Spiralli, Thursday, April 24, 2014 4:29 PM

what are the broken pawns. i've just been using the free low level ones and trading them in every so often. groups of bandits on the roads are still kicking my butt

i got one real early with an ordinary woman's name, Karen i am fairly sure, and her owner had limited her level but she had maxed-out, late game rare gear and was a total powerhouse

whatever the fighter class is. i got another midway thru with a more forgettable fantasyish name, also a female fighter.

Dammit, Fract really _is_ like myst. I can't find the symbolic to detangle the tune I'm supposed to play to solve the final puzzle in one of the areas.

Final Fantasy - NES
Assassin's Creed IV - PC
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX - PC
Castlevania: Rond of Blood - T16
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - PSX
Metal Gear Solid - PSX
Metal Gear Rising Revengeance - PC
Metal Gear Solid 2 - PC

you livin' the life, Adam, respect

finished saints row 4
tried diablo 3 again - meh so spammy
maybe back to metro 2033

"Finished" Portal and Fez, loved both. Seems like there's still aftergame stuff for me to do, which is cool.

I'm a good way into the first God of War, and I can't be sure but I think I might kinda hate it. The brutal waves of super tough enemies are awesome, and some of the puzzles are pretty good, but creating Indiana Jones-esque deathtraps with a shitty camera and sketchy controls was the fucking worst idea ever. I've wasted so much of my playtime on failing to kill everything onscreen within a set time before falling to my death or being crushed or sliced up by shit that I can barely see in front of me that it's kinda become a chore for me to continue. I might just be hating the PS2-ness of it, though.

I've been surprisingly digging a lot of arcade-y stuff that I've gotten cheap from PSN recently. Super Stardust and Wipeout took me a little while to get used to but they're amazing once I'm in the zone. Just got Retro/Grade, which I haven't played much but which has an awesome conceit (basically a rhythm game disguised as a shooter that runs in reverse). The Space Invaders update also seems like good value.

This weekend, I hit 50% completion and the 100 hour mark near-simultaneously on Just Cause 2. Clearing a few areas in the game has become such a reliably perfect way to decompress at the end of the day.

kotor + bg2

getting myself psyched + ready for pillars of eternity i guess

xps I played GoW 1 for the first time... a year ago? Maybe two? Felt some of the same frustrations as you, but I'm still planning to truck on through to the others at some point. I can see how it all would've been far more impressive back in 2006, but some of those levels and dungeons are awfully designed.

What build you going for in KOTOR, Mordy?

i guess soldier guardian. tbh i'm kinda more interested in my bg2 half-elf cleric/ranger build (so OP apparently it's ppl's fave for soloing the game). (thought about playing a wild mage too.)

Streets of Rage 3
Bare Knuckle III

So BKIII is the Japanese version of SOR3 and it is WAY easier. This does not mean it is easy though, it only means it is possible to get through stage 1 without using a continue. American version of Streets of Rage 3 is one of the more difficult games I've ever played.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VWsJPJ19DA

That level with the bulldozer is all-time unfair.

all that and he's beat by a girder

i love the energy meter for 'wall'.

i guess i only played Streets of Rage 1 & 2.

man why doesn't axel just jump over the damn walls

sor3 is weird. it seems like it admits to tactics then it doesn't really.

I think after you get past the stage where you are fighting kangaroos and evil dominatrix clowns they just figured they could get away w that.

Played 2-player Hyperstone Heist for the Genesis last night. Got to Super Shredder and then we died and we were out of continues! The music in that game is incredible. Orchestrated speed metal.

i'm still playing bg2.

eu4 always with the eu4. genovese colonial empire.

It's the Sunk Cost Fallacy games that stand out to me. Returnal too. I paid full price for most of these and have given them all about 10-25 hours of my time, never quite clicking, but still keen to one day follow through with them mostly because I feel I gave up too early to really see them through

Loco Motive - as a pastiche of 90s lucasarts adventure games it's got the style down perfect. feel like i'm even hearing the same voice actors as monkey island though it could be good mimickry, i didn't check. not far enough yet to judge how good it is at the puzzles

Animal Well - bounced off of this back when it came out for reasons i don't remember but i'm giving it another shot. it's fine. i'll finish it this time. probably not the ARG stuff though. i always say i want combat-less metroid games but i think what i really want is a more pure exploration experience like Knytt and that's way harder to pull off compellingly than cramming your game with puzzles and obstacles

not going to post my backlog.txt but it's real and has like 60 games in it. yikes

I've definitely hit the point where I know (not that) deep down that I have more games than I can/will play, just as there are more books that I want to read than I will, or movies to see, etc. It's sad, but I'm at peace with it.

i've been on a real run of point-and-click adventure games, both old and new but retro, so thanks for the loco motive heads up

only having a switch and a ps4 and having niche gaming tastes limits my backlog, which is probably a good thing. i do wish i could play blue prince. i did just get a new laptop so i could look into steam, i suppose, but i'm trying to keep it as a music-making tool exclusively.

mostly playing golf (irl dlc pack). stupid game really

i've been on a real run of point-and-click adventure games, both old and new but retro, so thanks for the loco motive heads up

cool. I get this urge from time to time too, there's some interesting ones on the horizon I've seen. I enjoy the no rush policy of these games

Bought it years ago and tried and failed to get into it a few times, but Rimworld finally hooked me. I guess I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for it before. Playing it with my daughter and we laugh a lot. Might finally get around to playing Oxygen Not Included eventually, too.

OK, finished (the main bulk of) AstroBot, so as a palette cleanser tried out a bit of "RoboCop: Rogue City." Played a little janky, but seems like it will be fun for a FPS.

AI the somnium files, because i'm a game behind on Uchikoshi's catalog.

i'm also wasting time on Revolution Idle and Party House.

thinking i might have to go for Promise Mascot Agency while it's on sale

I'm enjoying RoboCop: Rogue City. A lot of the reviews were pretty otm, in that it's just a solid, not terribly ambitious AA game that's reasonably well done. They got Peter Weller to come back and do the voice, a lot of the game looks great, and the gameplay, at least early on, is fun and maybe a step up from simple and not entirely devoid of challenge. For sure the first time you encounter ED-209 - and I assume there will be more - you are so insanely unmatched that you more or less have to cheese it. Maybe that is the point? The only big down is that the weak link of the game is of course the human animations in the cut scenes, and there are a lot of cut scenes.

Prototype. On Steam, with a mod or two for 60fps+ and 4K resolution. Game goddamn rips. Insomniac’s Spider-Man but the total M rated carnage version.

nice! I never played that series and kept confusing it for a while with the Infamous games, which I played at least one of, probably after it was free on Playstation for a while

Really enjoyed Prototype back when it was new but have never played the second one and have never replayed. But it's very different than Infamous... never really understood the very common confusion between the two.

I heard they added dick auto targeting to robocop via dlc

Ha. I know from the start you could get some bonus XP from shooting baddies in the junk.

Really enjoyed Prototype back when it was new but have never played the second one and have never replayed. But it's very different than Infamous... never really understood the very common confusion between the two.

I think because both came out reasonably the same time(?), and featured a character with super powers going about the city sorting shit out. I can see the similarity myself, but having played both yeah they're not really the same game at all.

Wish Infamous would come out on PC, I loved that game.

"Robocop: Rogue City" was pretty straight forward, simple and fun, albeit a bit mindless. Def. far better than it could have been, though. The biggest problem was its relative ease. When you face the first boss (or the closest thing to one) you are massively underpowered and it's hard to make progress without cheesing. But by the time you face it again you are so overpowered it's pretty trivial. That's kind of par for the course for games with leveling skills, but the same held true for the final boss, which was so easy it barely registered. Still, liked it, and look forward to the DLC. Not every game has to be 80 hours of AAA ambition.

Shogun Showdown - a deck-builder without the deck. hand-builder? i love the rhythm of this and how it starts to resemble a cool action game as you get locked in and play faster despite being fully turn-based. i'm not good enough yet to reach that flow state beyond the first couple levels though, it's tough. really good.

is anyone playing Rematch? it is very, very addictive, very fun when you get a group of teammates who enjoy playing good football, and almost unbelievably annoying when you get dumbasses, which is a lot of of the time

Ooh this sounds good, might have to pick it up.

I initially decided not to buy it based on reviews indicating how simplified the football ruleset is, but Brendan's review on RPS convinced me to take the plunge and I'm glad I did, even if my whole weekend has now somehow evaporated

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rematch-review

I'm 8.5 hours into Citizen Sleeper 2 and it's taken nearly that long to feel a engrossing as the first game. It adds some new mechanics that you get access to pretty early on that are interesting but the UI isn't always the clearest (I incurred a permanent disadvantage because of it). But I'm hopeful that it's finally hitting its stride where I'm at.

Decided to restart Vice City, ps2 version, all over again. for full 1oo percent.

threw my dummy out over some of the very early mission already, so fuck knows how bad it's going to be later on.

but had to laugh at my remembering how chaotic it can get with simple missions if you just accidentally run over one cop and it all just goes batshit and hilarious.

i've opened up the full islands so now i'm going to focus on finding all 100 hidden packages before any more missions.

continuing my trend of not playing AAA games until they're at least five years old, i've been playing god of war (2018). very fun game, the continuous action/story with no breaks makes it addictive.

I really liked that one, good execution. This morning I finished 2016 Doom, that was fun.

That last big spider in 2016 Doom got a "YES!" when I finally beat it. Doom Eternal still unplayed, which leaves me room to jump right into Dark Ages afterwards.

On the last two chapters of Dead Space 3, finally. Next, maybe Alan Wake 2?

Weirdly, I thought the spider boss in Doom was ... easy? That is, it took me a couple of times to beat it, then the game more or less crashed during the final cut scene, and when I booted it up again it made me fight the spider again. I thought, shit, this sucks, what if I got lucky the first time? But I beat it again pretty quickly, on normal mode.

I, too, have but have not played Eternal (I think i got it for $10?). It looks wrong to me, but Dark Ages looks kind cool.

I, also too, may hit Alan Wake 2 next, though I have so much else that intrigues me, from indies to AAA. I'm kinda glad there hasn't been anything to catch my eye for a while.

I actually ended up starting Nine Sols, lol. It's hard!

picked up Metaphor again and played another chunk of it. i still like it a lot more than Persona but i already want to take another break to play some shorter games. i'll finish it eventually, someday

Still playin' Nightreign

have not played Eternal (I think i got it for $10?). It looks wrong to me, but Dark Ages looks kind cool.

I, also too, may hit Alan Wake 2 next, though I have so much else that intrigues me, from indies to AAA. I'm kinda glad there hasn't been anything to catch my eye for a while.

Eternal rips, but it is a different beast. One for the “git gud” folks. LOT of mechanics that you have to operate at a 100 mph. It’s amazing imo, probably the most intense shit you’ll ever play if you stick with it and find the flow, but don’t expect simple run n gun like 2016. More cartoonish aesthetic too, which is probably why it “looks wrong”.

Dark Ages dials it back and finds a nice middle ground between the two. Much more approachable. Fun fucking time and probably the one I’d recommend to play 2nd if you can.

And basically everyone needs to play Alan Wake 2. There is some gleefully wild shit in that game that needs to be witnessed first hand.

I can imagine. Like that bit in "Control" where, when it starts up, your jaw just drops as it instantly accords so much goodwill that the rest of the game could be or do anything and the developers get a free pass forever.

I've given up on AW2. The big moment fell flat for me, and I found the Alan puzzles frustratingly opaque. I think I only like Remedyv when they give me cool telekinetic powers.

I loved both AW games, but bounced off of Control. Each their own.

AW2 was more than a Big Moment for me, just a cool ~moodz~ game above all that consistently surprised. And it managed to pull so much Twin Peaks into it in a way that was actually charming. My zone.

I had heard such good things about Nine Sols, but I'm finding it kinda boring and also really difficult. It's another game that emphasizes (well, demands) parrying, and if you don't like that or are no good at that, it's just no fun. (And I played Sekiro.) But also it's weirdly slow, imo, and the combat feels clunky (as opposed to super-tight a la Sekiro), and not intuitive. None of the buttons or actions are sticking with me, so it might be time to move on.

hades owns

recently

golden idol dlc - the latest is good. i like it when they throw a completely unexpected scenario at the player -- the museum chapter in rise is a favorite of mine. this dlc manages to do that a few times.

hauntii - casual overhead action/puzzle game with a ghost who possesses things. very polished look, but the game gets repetitive.

lenna's inception - heavily influenced by link's awakening including some of its bugs. i didn't like the randomly generated map.

duck detective 2 - very short and some of the deducktions were more annoying that fun.

Isles of Sea and Sky got a big update that is doing my brain in. Cryptic messages all over the place. It currently crashes a lot so most people should wait for a patch.

wrapped up god of war and moved right into god of war ragnarok. felt a little weird at first (the teenage atreus is odd-looking) but now that i'm into the game proper i love it. the level designs are so cool just in the first realm (the dwarf city! the steaming pools and geysers!).

one thing both of the games do really well is play with the sense of scale - they both have creatures (the world serpent and the frozen giant in the first game, the chained-up whale) that are huge compared to the main characters, and they really feel huge in an impressive way.

so far the second game feels a little more puzzle-oriented, which is fine with me. the enemies are mostly weird animal-things, not undead warriors, and most of the big battles have been against large hordes of creatures as opposed to a proper boss. i'm sure this will change but it's been a refreshing change of pace so far.

Dipped my toe into the new 2d Ninja Gaiden game, it's really good, although I hate the guitar music soundtrack. Just give me some nice clean retro synths please.

It didn't necessarily look that appealing from videos, but I loved Blasphemous 2 and similarly it feels really good to play once you get your hands on it.

Started "Miles Morales." Looks great, seems fun, that's more than half the battle right there.

hi, i'm not really a video game person but i sort of used to be. i recently downloaded a few emulators and got back into the cliche stuff from ages ago. i always wanted to see princess zelda in a blue dress, so i got the zelda redux `fantasy of hyrule` game file and here we are:
https://i.imgur.com/Rol3uU5.jpeg

the playthrough was about as difficult as i could endure. ganon alone took at least 10 attempts. i also got metroid zero mission and a link to the past on my emulator but have reached points in both of them that are too difficult for me to progress any further. putting in plenty of time on tetris, nba jam, and dr mario though!

i've been on a similarly vintage trip, v obsessed with smash tennis (screw you mike!) and super picross

I’m on the usual CoDM and War Robots. Games I can play on my phone basically. Boring I know.

So is there somewhere we can discuss the incredible preponderance of creepy Nazi number names in these games right now? They are really out in force at the moment.

And I mean I’ve actively tried searching for multi-player games that don’t suffer from this infestation but it legit seems to be in every single game. I’ve even tried bringing it to the notice of parties who may be interested ie the companies platforming this shit and the few groups devoted to watching hate speech etc online. No one seems to care at all. Even when it rises to literally the worst hate speech (and I’ve got screenshots to prove it) the response is just *crickets*.

Although I've put my PS5 away for the summer, I haven't quite managed to give up gaming.

Right now I'm in the middle of a playthrough of Chrono Trigger. While the first part of the story feels very fresh in my mind, everything from going back to the Dark Ages / Cloud World and Schala seems to have gone from my memory entirely. That said, I don't feel the story is quite as strong or compelling in this part of the game. There are some scenes where stuff gets explained so quickly and elusively I only have a basic grasp of what's going on. I also seem to have failed at getting Magus to join my party - something I didn't realise could happen. Anyway, last time I played my game crashed during a complicated dungeon area and I've put it down for a while.

In the meantime, I've just picked up Breath Of The Wild, which I'd never played before. I dunno if I love it yet. I'm still in the first few hours / tutorial area. Maybe in a post-Elden Ring world this game isn't quite as impressive. The opening plateau feels huge but it's pretty empty, and I've been running around trying to find the four Shrines for ages, often going round and round in circles while the Old Man insists that I learn a bunch of boring crafting techniques. The combat is annoying, and I find Link hard to control. Plus equipment breaks constantly, so even if I get a cool weapon it barely lasts a fight. Once I find the Shrines, I enjoy the puzzles a lot, but they're really short.

Mind you it's hard to judge a game by its opening area. When it comes to open world games I think Elden Ring has spoiled me.

Wuchang Fallen Feathers is a very good soulslike. Real emphasis on exploration and interconnected paths etc. lots of cool build variety and unlimited respeccing.

Good to hear. Every year there are a couple of new Soulslikes, and they all seem to come *this close* to the real thing. Nioh, Lies of P, Lords of the Fallen (none of which I've played yet, two of which I own, lol)