Author Topic: What are you playing right now?  (Read 613907 times)

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Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I went back to crashing playing Torchlight with, among other things, a mod that adds 10x monsters and 5x champion monsters to every level.
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Offline Iain Baker

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Recently finished the hilarious point and click adventure / 'jerk simulator' Not Another Weekend. Quite possibly the funniest game I have ever played. Highly recommended since its under £9 on steam, although perhaps only if you are old enough to remember the '80s, since most of its humour is a parody of '80s celebrities  :lol:
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Offline Det. Bullock

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I didn't post here in a while:

Finished Titanfall 2 (PC) thanks to the Steam free weekend.
Bland protagonist that wall runs with a robot sidekick that's more interesting, which is it: this or Jedi: Fallen Order?
Though the robot in this case has a voice actor doing their damndest to sound like Peter Cullen and is a humungous mecha.
It was fun, looked pretty and didn't overstay its welcome.
I had tried the demo back when I had my old video card and screen, I remember it playing a bit slow with most settings turned down and a 1280x1024 resolution but with a RX 580 it was a really smooth 1080p all settings maxed experience.

Finished The Cat Lady (PC)
I had it on hold for years because at the time I had found it a bit too depressing.
I still don't really like the kayboard interface, there is really no reason why this couldn't have been point & click.
Apparently I got the good canon ending, there is a non-canon golden ending apparently but is impossible to get on first try.

Finished Still Life (PC)
The game was stupidly easy bar the cookie puzzle (I have even found a page that lays down the "reasoning" to deduce the ingredients and basically assumes you know how to make the cookies in the first place. What the hell they were thinking?) and the lockpicking puzzle that both led me to check a walkthrough.
The lockpicking puzzle is technically doable but the way it resets a few steps everytime you make a mistake made me lose my patience.
It's not even that inspired either and the ending feels rushed.
Hardware-wise I had to use DGvoodoo2 to make it work properly because it doesn't deal well with modern GPUs.

I finished Still Life 2 (PC)
I tried to play it properly but at about two-thirds of the game I finally got fed up with this slow-as-molasses, pixel-hunting, solve-this-puzzle-in-time-or-die mess and solved the last third/quarter of the game with a walkthrough.
Walking doesn't feel responsive, clicking on stuff doesn't feel responsive, the puzzles are either stupidly easy, stupidly difficult or reliant on pixel-hunting. The story and atmosphere are also inferior to both Still Life and Post Mortem which weren't exactly masterpieces (especially Post Mortem with its clumsy attempts at non-linear puzzles with multiple solutions) but they felt at least competent to an extent.
I know kids back then apparently liked the Saw movies but I don't see why wedge one into a series that usually dealt with classic Jack the Ripper style serial killers with occult motifs and least of all trying to tie puzzles to a game over timer and put in a limited inventory that only makes you walk around more in the end which is the activity that the developers went out of their way to make as tedious as possible due to the crappy pathfinding and ever-so-slightly overlong animations.
Oh, well, another one off the backlog I guess.

I then had to migrate to Joystick Gremlin due to Windows 10 finally managing to kill CH Control Manager (the virtual peripheral driver caused BSODs on startup if the HOTAS was plugged in and it often refused to swtich profiles even with USB energy-saving protocols disabled).
It took me a while to figure things out, and it adds a few steps to make things work for games that don't allow to select devices manually, namely the inability to to hide the physical devices means that you need to make sure vJoy has priority in the control panel, or doesn't have it in a few cases.
Also the click on the ministick on the CH Pro Throttle without software is recognized as multiple buttons, each press corresponding to a different one, and the numbering is different which scrambled the mappings even in the games that have native HOTAS support.
At the moment I have rewritten for JG the profiles for X-wing, X-wing vs Tie Fighter, Tie Fighter, Freespace Open and Rogue Squadron 3D, only about 20+ profiles to go!

Then I got a new PC, same GPU and peripherals but everything else including the case is brand new. Mostly so that I could hand down my old one to my family activity so my brothers would finally stop buying crappy laptops that they never move away from the office and can't even alt-tab between thunderbird and firefox without thermal throttling.

Star Wars Squadrons is much more pleasant to play without crashes. Of course by now finding players for fleet battles has become problematic and there's lots of waiting. Dogfight mode instead seems to be still going strong, I was even able to do a faction-specific challenge (win 3 with the new republic) rather easily which means there are enough player that choosing a specific faction won't give issues when trying to find a game (I usually set it to random).
Unfortunately I did burn out on it a bit, the ranked fleet battles can be extremely frustrating at times as the way the game evaluates your losses seem influenced by your team mates performances and often you lose a bunch of points for being the only one in the team that knew what they were doing even if the match was actually neck-toneck rather than a catastrophic loss.
I'll probably try to raise to the ranks anyway as the current ladder will last for another 40+ days but not right now.

Halo: Reach (PC) reminds me a bit of ODST which means that I'll probably end up liking it more than the main installments.

I tried the Sleeping Dogs steam demo again because apart from performance issues my mind drew a blank from the last time I tried it and the remastered is only 3 Euros on GOG.
No performance issues this time but I had trouble convincing the game to use mouse and keyboard properly.
First it took my HOTAS as a gamepad with only gamepad prompts and keyboard was only partially mapped, then I plugged in a real Xinput gamepad but the buttons were scrambled, then I unplugged everything and the game refused to use even the few keyboard keys that workled altogether prompting me to plug in a gamepad. I had to use CTRL-ALT-DEL to recall the task manager and force-colse the game because it refused to alt-tab. And yes, steam input was disabled.
I had to unplug everything before launching it to get it working with mouse and keyboard.
Does anyone know if the remastered version sold on GOG has the same issues?
« Last Edit: June 11, 2021, 04:25:05 am by Det. Bullock »
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Offline 5thAce

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Have you guys ever played Executive Assault 2 on Steam? It's a hybrid RTS-FPS game where you build your base, mine resources, and build a fleet of large capital ships to destroy the enemy. You can destroy the enemy base by bombardment from your ships, either through ordering them or directly controlling them. Or you can lead a ground assault as you and your troops board the enemy base. What I really like about the game is that it takes place across multiple "Star Systems" where to enter and leave the system you have to jump at a certain location, leading to some very interesting blockades and blockade breaking. Here's a picture of a familiar "node" map that I made in the game.

[attachment deleted to save space]

 
Re: What are you playing right now?
Have you guys ever played Executive Assault 2 on Steam?
No, but it sounds cool, I've put it on my list.

What I [did] start (again) is Phantasy Star Online 2. A couple of days again, it rebooted as sort of a PSO2.5 - you can get back to the old content after a point in the story. It looks way better, and plays better, and has like an intro story now, and the interface has been modernized somewhat, and I'm really excited to put some time into it.

I'd say it's definitely worth a look if action-MMORPGs is your thing, or if you have any nostalgia for any of the other PSO games.

It's free with a cash shop that is pretty ignorable unless you really want fancy cosmetic items.

 

Offline jr2

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Anyone here play Genshin Impact?  Seems to be a decent RPG, not too grindy, but maybe I just haven't reached the point where that becomes a problem yet, IDK.  Also on Steam & Epic, free to play.


 
Re: What are you playing right now?
Anyone here play Genshin Impact?
I started it some time ago, and thought it was pretty good, but didn't have time among all the other games I was trying to get through. Also I've heard that the gacha mechanics get pretty bad later on. But as long as you're fine with a suboptimal team, you should be fine, probably...

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I'd been interested in Subnautica for years after watching some playthrough clips, and I finally pulled the trigger during the summer sale. One week after installing it and I'm...dear lord, 25 hours in. "Addictive" doesn't even begin to describe it. It's a fantastically-realized environment that perfectly nails the "okay just one more thing before I quit" that only the best sandbox games nail down. Just crafted myself a big boy sub, so now I can get utterly terrified by Leviathans trying to murder me in it!

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: What are you playing right now?
FF XII (12, not X2)

Had it on ps2 but never progressed past the bunny girl tree.   Got it for my switch and can now revisit my back catalogue while skiving off at work...
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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Offline General Battuta

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I'd been interested in Subnautica for years after watching some playthrough clips, and I finally pulled the trigger during the summer sale. One week after installing it and I'm...dear lord, 25 hours in. "Addictive" doesn't even begin to describe it. It's a fantastically-realized environment that perfectly nails the "okay just one more thing before I quit" that only the best sandbox games nail down. Just crafted myself a big boy sub, so now I can get utterly terrified by Leviathans trying to murder me in it!

I really like this game! Savor it, there's nothing like that first playthrough! I just finished the sequel/expandalone/whatever and I really did not like it!

 
Re: What are you playing right now?
I really like this game! Savor it, there's nothing like that first playthrough! I just finished the sequel/expandalone/whatever and I really did not like it!

Interesting! Without spoilers, what did you dislike about it? I'd been putting it off until full release

 

Offline Det. Bullock

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Re: What are you playing right now?
A few of the games I played in the last month:

Halo 4 (PC)
What is it with the mainline games of the saga that makes me hate the combat encounters to the point I prefer to run past them when given the choice?
And it's just those, basically every game in which you play as Master Chief at times feels like a chore with some fun sprinkled in, while ODST and Reach felt much better in every regard.
There is also the return of the weird checkpointing of Halo 1-2-3 with the game that sometimes decides to send you back quite away from where you died because *reasons* though not quite as often.
And I still can't shake the feeling that Cortana's voice actor delivery feels very off at times, especially in the lighter moments. Which is odd as the other character voiced by her sounds perfectly fine.
The plot is also some ancient astronauts/Atlantis nonsense which is frankly not even particularly well done as such.

Prey 2006 (PC)
I kept postponing it basically since it came out and so I ended up buying a key on eBay because it's technically delisted on Steam, primarily as a palate cleanser after completing two Halo games in a row.
After messing a bit with ini files to allow fullHD resolution it was smooth sailing fortunately.
The native american stuff is pretty much b-movie guff but the gimmicks are still good fun, I also like that most of the weapons are some form of technorganic abomination with very nice animations.

Doom 64 (PC)
For now the levels seem smaller than on the PC titles.
Also remapping was a bit tedious because instead of separating pad and keyboard mappings they just "flash" between mappings which makes it very difficult to see if any remap took or not. And in fact I could see that the fire button didn't remap to CTRL only when I had already started the game.
For now it's on hold because I'm mostly playing another title I bought during steam sales:

Dak Souls II: Scholar of The First Sin (PC)
Another game I kept postponing for years due to its mixed reputation.
The controller support is a mess, I had to disable vJoy and unplug the HOTAS otherwise it would refuse to aknowledge any controller plugged in.
In many ways it's much more dickish with enemy placement compared to the first game, I ended up farming much more because here the respawns are limited so to be sure I often chip away at all the enemies between the boss and the bonfire and spend all the souls in level ups or equipment before even attempting going against the boss. And the bonfire placement in the secondary entrance of the Lost Bastille can **** right off. Bosses tend to be easier than average enemies too, the difficult ones are usually those surrounded by mooks or made of multiple sub-bosses.
I'm at the Iron Keep now, a relatively safe place for farming souls if you don't go too far. Cleaned the first area and made an attempt at the Smelter Demon (or whatever it's called), will try again later.


« Last Edit: July 23, 2021, 06:23:18 am by Det. Bullock »
"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?
For its time, prey 2006 was absolutely fantastic.
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

 

Offline Androgeos Exeunt

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I've started playing Grim Dawn again - been taking a promising Death Knight build for a romp, and it's clearly proving its salt when it comes to damage, but the HP evaporates really quickly under ranged fire. Definitely a cut above all the other builds I tried out in the past, and I quite like it.

I acquainted myself with GrimTools last night, so I might start a new game with this Conjurer build.
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Offline karajorma

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I'd been interested in Subnautica for years after watching some playthrough clips, and I finally pulled the trigger during the summer sale. One week after installing it and I'm...dear lord, 25 hours in. "Addictive" doesn't even begin to describe it. It's a fantastically-realized environment that perfectly nails the "okay just one more thing before I quit" that only the best sandbox games nail down. Just crafted myself a big boy sub, so now I can get utterly terrified by Leviathans trying to murder me in it!

I enjoyed the sequel but it didn't grip me in quite the same way as the first one did. The only thing I didn't like about the first one was the inventory management which becomes less of an issue once you have the sub and fill it with lockers.

A few of the games I played in the last month:

Halo 4 (PC)
What is it with the mainline games of the saga that makes me hate the combat encounters to the point I prefer to run past them when given the choice?
And it's just those, basically every game in which you play as Master Chief at times feels like a chore with some fun sprinkled in, while ODST and Reach felt much better in every regard.
There is also the return of the weird checkpointing of Halo 1-2-3 with the game that sometimes decides to send you back quite away from where you died because *reasons* though not quite as often.
And I still can't shake the feeling that Cortana's voice actor delivery feels very off at times, especially in the lighter moments. Which is odd as the other character voiced by her sounds perfectly fine.
The plot is also some ancient astronauts/Atlantis nonsense which is frankly not even particularly well done as such.

Interesting, I seem to be the reverse. I loved Halo and enjoyed 2 and 3 enough that they are definitely worth a replay. I found Reach largely forgettable (probably in part cause I knew how it would end)  and I didn't even bother finishing ODST because I was completely turned off by the game. I agree with you about Halo 4 though. I got halfway through that one and other games came along which interested me more so I haven't gone back.
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Offline Mongoose

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I really like this game! Savor it, there's nothing like that first playthrough! I just finished the sequel/expandalone/whatever and I really did not like it!

It really has been a blast. I just made it to what I know is the entrance to the general endgame area (getting the Cyclops down there was a trip), so I could theoretically push through to the end, but I feel like I want to screw around a good long while before I decide to end it. I agree with karajorma that inventory management can be a bit of a pain: I've had many times where I'll stop collecting a resource for a while because I know I have a bunch of it and don't feel like creating a more comprehensive storage solution, and then inevitably a bit later I'll realize I'm almost out of something. (It is profoundly stupid that you can't break titanium ingots back down into their individual chunks.) I haven't built any lockers on the Cyclops yet, but I've seen screenshots of some impressive mobile base builds, so I might toy around with that. On the other hand, my base design is pretty modest and I have almost every update I need already constructed, so I don't really need too much more in the way of most materials unless I want to go ham on base-building across the world.

The one gameplay element that does annoy me a bit is how arbitrary finding specific upgrade fragments or data boxes can be. It took me forever to find enough fragments to make a battery charger, and by that time I had almost half a locker's worth of discharged batteries sitting around being useless. At this point I'm still missing a few ship upgrade blueprints that would be extremely useful in the endgame area, and despite checking out every single wreck I've come across, I haven't lucked out yet. (I've found what feels like 200 Propulsion Cannon scraps during that time.) I could carry around the materials for a scanning room and power source and scan the hell out of the world, but even then there's no way to check off the HUD indicators for wrecks, so I'd have to plop down a massive amount of beacons to keep track of what I've already checked. Either way I'm doomed to a bunch of Seamoth wandering.

(Also TIL that beds aren't just cosmetic and actually let you quickly progress time. Whoops!)

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I also solved that problem by building a small separate base consisting of a power source and a scanner room (with all the distance upgrades) and then taking it apart and building it whereever I felt like looking for databoxes.
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Offline Mongoose

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Yeah, I think I may wind up starting to go that route, or at the very least start popping beacons on every wreck I've cleared so far. According to the wiki there are 23 large wrecks and even fewer smaller ones, so it's not that insurmountable. I know I could just be a cheaty bastard and look up exactly where they are, but I'm trying to stay at least somewhat honest. :p

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Finally got everything I needed. I cheesed it a bit by looking at a map of the wrecks to get their general area, because I'd been moving the scanner room all over the place, but there were a few way the hell out by the edge of the map well beyond where I was planning on setting up scanners. I straight-up looked up the last one or two blueprints that I didn't really need, and one of them wound up being something I'd probably seen at a bunch of wrecks, but it was such a small piece of debris I didn't even bother trying to scan it. Didn't even know the damn thing was in the game until I saw it on a list of items. :p

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: What are you playing right now?
That was one thing I liked about the sequel. Only one big shipwreck (spread out into three parts but fairly easy to find one from the other).
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