Author Topic: What are you playing right now?  (Read 613825 times)

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Cool beans, thanks for the insights

 

Offline 0rph3u5

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Playing with all the new sliders in Stellaris; Having the option of delaying the end-game crisis makes it a little more statisfying when you crank up the difficulty now (up until recently the highest crisis rating I was able to beat was x3, even then only by sacrificing 80 percent of galaxy to the Contigency*).

* I am still playing Machine Empires in almost all of my games, despite moving on from the Driven Assimilator-civic (it's just not that fun anymore when you basically have to the option for a Total War from the start of the game); and so far I always got the Contigency as a end-game crisis as a result.
"As you sought to steal a kingdom for yourself, so must you do again, a thousand times over. For a theft, a true theft, must be practiced to be earned." - The terms of Nyrissa's curse, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

==================

"I am Curiosity, and I've always wondered what would become of you, here at the end of the world." - The Guide/The Curious Other, Othercide

"When you work with water, you have to know and respect it. When you labour to subdue it, you have to understand that one day it may rise up and turn all your labours into nothing. For what is water, which seeks to make all things level, which has no taste or colour of its own, but a liquid form of Nothing?" - Graham Swift, Waterland

"...because they are not Dragons."

 

Offline Det. Bullock

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  • Madman in a box.
Re: What are you playing right now?
I finally finished Batman Arkham Knight (PC)
So, uhm, it’s fine.
Not a masterpiece, just fine.
It’s lavishly crafted but there is a lot of filler content and assorted fluff, some well disguised some not so much.
Also, screw the Batmobile. Not so much for the tank sections but for the goddamn races necessary for the true ending and the tunnel runs in the main story missions.
The plot has its moments but sometimes I feels it does a disservice to some members of the Batfamily.
Barbara stays kidnapped for most of the plot and doesn’t to much after being rescued, Tim Drake as a shaved skinhead look is at odds with the brooding but overall nice kid he is in the comics (also, I’m perplexed on the decision of pairing him with Barbara), Nightwing’s mask looks stupid but at least he acts in character and his ribbing of Batman managed to make me chuckle a few times.
The ministories DLC are nice (especially the Batgirl one) but they tend to be much more difficult than the main game, I get probably Harley Quinn and Red Hood don't have super-expensive armor but I sincerely doubt Batman would send Barbara and Tim with basically no armor to speak of (even more galling the fact that Barbara's suit looks made of the same materials as Batman's).

Hardware-wise it’s not nearly a resource hog as the requirements would suggest apart for the video ram which stayed steadily in the 4/4.2 gb mark according to the Radeon overlay, it also didn’t play nice with Freesync forcing me to enable V-sync and lock the frame rate at 60 to get rid of the tearing.
There are occasional crashes but were few and all of them were during a checkpoint loading after dying, and frame rate drops are there but not game-breaking (they mostly are while driving around the city).
"I pity the poor shades confined to the euclidean prison that is sanity." - Grant Morrison
"People assume  that time is a strict progression of cause to effect,  but *actually*  from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more  like a big ball  of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff." - The Doctor

 

Offline Turambar

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Back into some TotalWarhammer 2.  Picked up the new DLC that adds new leaders, regiments of renown, and units for high elves and dark elves.  Played a dark elves campaign and had a great time aggressively stabbing a bunch of high elves mostly and won that campaign.

Started up a Mortal Empires campaign now, that's the map that combines Totalwarhammer 1 and 2.  Playing as Belegar Ironhammer, so i start some distance away from my 'ancestral homeland' that i have to recapture in order to lift this onerous 150% debuff to my troop upkeep.  This makes the early game even more tactical and fun.
10:55:48   TurambarBlade: i've been selecting my generals based on how much i like their hats
10:55:55   HerraTohtori: me too!
10:56:01   HerraTohtori: :D

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Metal Wolf Chaos.  On PC.  The day it'll be released.  Because AMERICA.

RICHAAAAARRRRRRD!!!

 

Offline Det. Bullock

  • 29
  • Madman in a box.
Re: What are you playing right now?
Finished Tomb Raider (PC)
So, uhm, what can I say?
If it wasn’t for the controls and camera this would be much easier, the combat is the worst part but the more fast paced platforming sections (fortunately not common) come close second.
I got lost only once and that was because of a passage that was basically invisible because of the textures, the geometry of the levels is so simple that often just looking around a bit was enough to know where to go.
Hearing people lamenting all the “dumbing down” of the Crystal Dynamics titles I expected something in which you were abandoned in an unforgiving mess like Wizardry VI, but this is much closer to a modern linear action adventure, only the lack of details allows the absence of a map or a guiding arrow and the controls often make the simplest things a chore.
Still I had to save insanely often to keep my sanity (357 saves) and I shudder to think of the PSX version which I heard has limited saves.
"I pity the poor shades confined to the euclidean prison that is sanity." - Grant Morrison
"People assume  that time is a strict progression of cause to effect,  but *actually*  from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more  like a big ball  of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff." - The Doctor

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Xcom 2 is free on play station plus this month.



So I've been playing armory and machine on my android phone.
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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The only good Zod is a dead Zod
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Re: What are you playing right now?
... Speaking of Nier: Automata, have you ever tried to switch between Nier and a Dark Souls game in the same day? I burned so many estus flasks trying to attack before I reset my muscle memory...

 
Re: What are you playing right now?
Alright, so I ended up buying the rest of the SC2 campaigns and am currently powering though them.

Heart of the Swarm was piss easy compared to wings of Liberty, I've never had to dial down the difficulty and there's only one mission I've had to restart a couple of times to adjust my strategy - something I've had to do quite often during WoL and now during LotV. Mission-design-wise, it is fairly varied, although I've been able to use pretty much the exact same strategy in every mission with base building. *insert all-solving-hammer joke* Some units & mutation also feel very gimmicky & situational.

Story-wise it felt just as shaky as WoL did, so I guess it's consistent in that regard. I overall disliked the number of "individual" zerg characters within the Swarm, though I guess with the Overmind & Cerebrates gone, they needed someone for Kerrigan to interact with, and you couldn't just throw her an entourage of infested terrans. Still, it's disappointing but fairly harmless, although I guess WoL set the standard pretty low.


Legacy of the Void has been pretty interesting so far, the Spear of Adun feels a bit more balanced than Kerrigan was, and being able to switch between unit variants before each mission is nice. I do notice that a lot of my strategies devolve into building lots of dragoons & zealots, but hey it got me through the original SC so why not... Difficulty-wise I'd say it's part way between HotS & WoL.

Story-wise however, I do have issues this time, with Blizzard going the corruption route for the N-th ****ing time.
- In Diablo 1 that's alright, they're kind of the forerunner and with all the devilry going on it fits the themes of the games ;
- in SC & Broodwar, infestation is Sci Fi take on the subject, so it's still fresh to a degree and it's mostly focused around Kerrigan & the Zerg ;
Diablo 2 & D2: LoD keep going at it with gusto, it may feel excessive, but that's in line with the first game ;
- in War3 : RoC, well we've got the fallen prince, the chaos orcs, the corrupted night elves & other Aschenvale dwellers, plus as a bonus the demonic demon hunter, that's starting to feel like a bit much ;
- with War3 : FT we can add the Naga as sort-of corrupted night elves, plus more fleshing out of the Scourge-serving nerubians ;
- WoW has had waayyyy too many examples over the years and as far as I know is still milking that type of plotline.
So no, going for yet another corrupting/mind controlling force is not OK. Try to have some properly motivated villains, you used to be able to do that. Your Big Bad should have plenty of arguments to get followers from every factions, so what the hell are you doing ?


Anyway, I think I'm close to the halfway point and I'm having a good time so far.

 
Re: What are you playing right now?
I passed 200 hours in HBS BattleTech last night.

There's three mechs that I don't have in storage in my post-campaign save, and I'm determined to find one of each.  That's proving a challenge, since all three are medium mechs that don't spawn very frequently in 3.5-plus-star contracts, which are all you can get in the late game.  The core gameplay is fun enough, though, that I don't mind the length of the hunt.

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

  • HLP is my mistress
  • 213
  • Aken Tigh Dekker- you've probably heard me
    • My old squad sub-domain
Re: What are you playing right now?
I thought SC2 was free now?
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
The only good Zod is a dead Zod
NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
http://badges.steamprofile.com/profile/default/steam/76561198011784807.png

 
Re: What are you playing right now?
Only the Terran campaign.

 

Offline 0rph3u5

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  • Oceans rise. Empires fall.
Re: What are you playing right now?
Story-wise however, I do have issues this time, with Blizzard going the corruption route for the N-th ****ing time.
[...]
So no, going for yet another corrupting/mind controlling force is not OK. Try to have some properly motivated villains, you used to be able to do that. Your Big Bad should have plenty of arguments to get followers from every factions, so what the hell are you doing ?

Every developer has their signature bit...

Story-wise however, I do have issues this time, with Blizzard going the corruption route for the N-th ****ing time.
- In Diablo 1 that's alright, they're kind of the forerunner and with all the devilry going on it fits the themes of the games ;
- in SC & Broodwar, infestation is Sci Fi take on the subject, so it's still fresh to a degree and it's mostly focused around Kerrigan & the Zerg ;
Diablo 2 & D2: LoD keep going at it with gusto, it may feel excessive, but that's in line with the first game ;
- in War3 : RoC, well we've got the fallen prince, the chaos orcs, the corrupted night elves & other Aschenvale dwellers, plus as a bonus the demonic demon hunter, that's starting to feel like a bit much ;
- with War3 : FT we can add the Naga as sort-of corrupted night elves, plus more fleshing out of the Scourge-serving nerubians ;

You are bit oversimplifying here (Please note that in a RTS the protagonist of the campaign may not be POV):

- granted Diablo hardly had anywhere to go until they did all the massive expansion of the mythology for part 3 (in-game, I know the lore was in parts there before 3), there isn't that many way you can go with demons as enemies...

- StarCraft acutally was more thematically varied than you give it credit for: The Terran Campaigns were about the limits of warfare, most notable in the signature bit of weaponizing the Zerg; The Zerg Campaigns were large degree about a twisted version of self-improvement (remember Kerrigan's transformation originally is just the stepping stone for the Overmind to absorb the Protoss), the differnent bids for power by the protagonists of the campaign; the Protoss-campaigns were about authority and compliance, esspecially to the point in both campaigns you are doing the bidding of the wrong people up to a point.

- Warcraft 3 the ideas on corruption are more varied than red-electricity mind-stuff: Arthas fall from grace begins with dissonance between his power as Paladin and Prince and his effectiveness in either role; The Fel Orcs-portion of the story is very much about the nature of trust and destiny with Hellscream taking in the demon blood as him giving up on Thrall's vision for the Horde in general and coming to Kalimdor in particular; The corruption of Ashenvale is counterpoint to the theme running through the Night Elf-campaign of the Night Elves, esspecially Tyrande, believing they know what the proper order of things is, and the subsequent unravelling of that order to preserve it (giving up their immortality to destroy Archimonde).

- Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne actually flips the script on the corruption-thing for two campaigns (Night Elves and Blood Elves) in order to posit the question if Illidan can be redeemed...
"As you sought to steal a kingdom for yourself, so must you do again, a thousand times over. For a theft, a true theft, must be practiced to be earned." - The terms of Nyrissa's curse, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

==================

"I am Curiosity, and I've always wondered what would become of you, here at the end of the world." - The Guide/The Curious Other, Othercide

"When you work with water, you have to know and respect it. When you labour to subdue it, you have to understand that one day it may rise up and turn all your labours into nothing. For what is water, which seeks to make all things level, which has no taste or colour of its own, but a liquid form of Nothing?" - Graham Swift, Waterland

"...because they are not Dragons."

 
Re: What are you playing right now?
Actually my issue isn't that the corruption bit isn't thematically varied between the different games, it's simply that it's present in some form or another every single time, and that it gets less subtle over time. Note that I don't have much problems with their use of this gimmick until the post-Warcraft 3 era:  like I said in the Diablo games, that's pretty much at the core of the story (note : I haven't played 3, so I don't know how it's handled there) ; infestation in Starcraft is pretty neat, especially since they incorporate it in gameplay (more so in SC2 than SC1 I think) and you've covered the different bits in War3 more thoroughly than I did. Hell, I don't even consider Illidan as a victim of it since he seems pretty much unchanged mentally post-demonization.

No, it's the whole "X has gone crazy/has been corrupted by evil" that's been popping up in WoW as a cheap justification for having players of both the Horde & Alliance going up against specific characters that bothers me. Blizzard can do better than that - they've crafted conflicts without having to resort to that. Neither Mengsk, nor the Conclave, the Confederacy or the Directorate had their mind tempered with, and yet they were foes we had good reasons to fight.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: What are you playing right now?
In Diablo 3 there are literal fountains of corruption which spray black ooze into heaven.

 

Offline 0rph3u5

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  • Oceans rise. Empires fall.
Re: What are you playing right now?
In Diablo 3 there are literal fountains of corruption which spray black ooze into heaven.

Artful as always...  ;)

Yes, the element of demon corrupting the things they come in contact with is back (see Diablo 1's quest to purify tristram's water supply), but Diablo 3 does a turn towards the use of power and responsibilty as thematic troughline (esspecially in regards to Kule, Tyrael and moreso with Malthael in the expansion)

Sidenote: Warcraft's comic exaggeration arrives full force in Diablo 3 as an artistic element (esspecially in the effects)... Some of that seems to be the natural development of Blizzard's house artist pre-Overwatch, some is legacy Diablo (there has always been a disconnect between concept art and in-game art) and some might just be the fallout from increased graphics technology (e.g. there is a lot of showman physics in the game)


The "black ooze"-corruption Batutta mentions is a feature of the art-style of Act IV, which is set in the High Heavens...
The main artistic features of that envoirment are higher intensity lighting in yellow and light blue hues, lots of white/ivory, yellow, gold and glowing blue "water" - the intrusion upon that with elements in black, greys, red and decreasing lighting are the markers of an ongoing demonic incursion

Ps. I am writing from a train, so I apologize for the fragmented poating
« Last Edit: June 18, 2018, 12:53:31 pm by 0rph3u5 »
"As you sought to steal a kingdom for yourself, so must you do again, a thousand times over. For a theft, a true theft, must be practiced to be earned." - The terms of Nyrissa's curse, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

==================

"I am Curiosity, and I've always wondered what would become of you, here at the end of the world." - The Guide/The Curious Other, Othercide

"When you work with water, you have to know and respect it. When you labour to subdue it, you have to understand that one day it may rise up and turn all your labours into nothing. For what is water, which seeks to make all things level, which has no taste or colour of its own, but a liquid form of Nothing?" - Graham Swift, Waterland

"...because they are not Dragons."

 

Offline 0rph3u5

  • 211
  • Oceans rise. Empires fall.
Re: What are you playing right now?
Actually my issue isn't that the corruption bit isn't thematically varied between the different games, it's simply that it's present in some form or another every single time, and that it gets less subtle over time. Note that I don't have much problems with their use of this gimmick until the post-Warcraft 3 era:  like I said in the Diablo games, that's pretty much at the core of the story (note : I haven't played 3, so I don't know how it's handled there) ; infestation in Starcraft is pretty neat, especially since they incorporate it in gameplay (more so in SC2 than SC1 I think) and you've covered the different bits in War3 more thoroughly than I did. Hell, I don't even consider Illidan as a victim of it since he seems pretty much unchanged mentally post-demonization.

No, it's the whole "X has gone crazy/has been corrupted by evil" that's been popping up in WoW as a cheap justification for having players of both the Horde & Alliance going up against specific characters that bothers me. Blizzard can do better than that - they've crafted conflicts without having to resort to that. Neither Mengsk, nor the Conclave, the Confederacy or the Directorate had their mind tempered with, and yet they were foes we had good reasons to fight.

(Stopover in Prague)
As I said, every developer has their signature bit :)

... which makes it neccessary to phrase stuff along the line of signature style (e.g. Bungie's proto-fashism), matters of course (e.g. Bethesda carrying forth Fallout's man is real monster), gameplay neccessities (e.g. Bioware creating a full NPC faction for SW:TOR to have a kind of unified endgame,) and then if it is a short-cut or not... these things need not be mutually exclusive BTW

That signature bits or styles go stale has seen ample of exposure lately (e.g. Bethesda's "outsider savior" has gotten really tedious)...
"As you sought to steal a kingdom for yourself, so must you do again, a thousand times over. For a theft, a true theft, must be practiced to be earned." - The terms of Nyrissa's curse, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

==================

"I am Curiosity, and I've always wondered what would become of you, here at the end of the world." - The Guide/The Curious Other, Othercide

"When you work with water, you have to know and respect it. When you labour to subdue it, you have to understand that one day it may rise up and turn all your labours into nothing. For what is water, which seeks to make all things level, which has no taste or colour of its own, but a liquid form of Nothing?" - Graham Swift, Waterland

"...because they are not Dragons."

  
Re: What are you playing right now?
Fair enough.

 

Offline Buckshee Rounds

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Got Prison Architect recently and it's ****ing hooked me. It's similar to games like Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress in that you have a site to manage - you're required to balance the needs of your prisoners with maintaining order and designing an efficient and profitable prison. You can choose to be as punitive or reformative as you want - deck your prison out with classrooms and workshops or turn it into a deathcamp sea of sniper towers and checkpoints.

It's ****ing awesome. The systems the player uses are simple enough, but when put together things can get really complex. I spent most of my evenings this week planning out my next prison before even starting construction.

Satisfying moments? Using the intelligence system to round up the most deadly prisoners and locking them away in a supermax death complex. I enjoyed that a little too much. Calling in SWAT is always fun - I love ordering them around and hearing them give a radio-static grunt that reminds me of the combine soldiers from Half Life. Picking prisoners completely at random for long duration solitary. Examples have to be made.

This game has so many fridge logic moments where the player realises all the unethical horrors they've just committed for the sake of law and order. Love it.

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

  • HLP is my mistress
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  • Aken Tigh Dekker- you've probably heard me
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Re: What are you playing right now?
I'm a massive fan of that game too.  The tutorial mission where you set the guy on death row sums it up.


I'm more of a punishment than reformer kind of guy.   
Campaigns I've added my distinctiveness to-
- Blue Planet: Battle Captains
-Battle of Neptune
-Between the Ashes 2
-Blue planet: Age of Aquarius
-FOTG?
-Inferno R1
-Ribos: The aftermath / -Retreat from Deneb
-Sol: A History
-TBP EACW teaser
-Earth Brakiri war
-TBP Fortune Hunters (I think?)
-TBP Relic
-Trancsend (Possibly?)
-Uncharted Territory
-Vassagos Dirge
-War Machine
(Others lost to the mists of time and no discernible audit trail)

Your friendly Orestes tactical controller.

Secret bomb God.
That one time I got permabanned and got to read who was being bitxhy about me :p....
GO GO DEKKER RANGERSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
President of the Scooby Doo Model Appreciation Society
The only good Zod is a dead Zod
NEWGROUNDS COMEDY GOLD, UPDATED DAILY
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