Author Topic: What are you playing right now?  (Read 612138 times)

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Offline Turambar

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I will always remember being Stroggified.

I am getting into some Total War Three Kingdoms, which is a really excellent Total War game so far. 
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 Colonol Dekker

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I'll always remember racing to get under one of the command ships (patton?  Hannibal?) landing feet.....  my laptop running win 7 is constantly black screen of deathing.    I fear for the future.
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
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Offline CP5670

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Finished Red Faction (PC)
A rather nice B shooter, the geomod isn't used really that much and the protagonist is way too fragile whcih makes boos fights either frustrating or underwhelming (I ended up using rush & flamethrower on both of them hoping not to be one hit killed before getting in range).
It's a rather average game compared to what I expect from Volition, even the story is very throwaway which is kinda strange from the same people that made Freespace and Saints Row.
Funny that they recycled Ultor for Saints Row.

I never played the first two games, but liked Guerilla and Armageddon a lot. I don't recall much of a story in them but the gameplay felt fluid and it was fun to just smash everything with the geomod.

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I actually really enjoyed red faction 2.   The head villain had an More Bison quality and the story was solid ;)
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 Det. Bullock

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Finished Quake IV (PC)
Not bad, if you want 7/8 hours of mostly mindless shooting this is the game for you.
The final boss went down easily with the Dark Matter Gun, there was a slightly puzzle-y thing going on in the final phase that threw me off (I tend not to expect puzzle bosses when the game is mostly straightforward) but since this game has multiple quicksave slots it wasn't frustrating like in games that use only checkpoints.

I also dabbled with the demo of Monster Boy and The Cursed Kingdom (PC)
It looked good in stills and on youtube but it looks delightful in person, also the game is seemingly an official Monster World/Wonder Boy installment now since there is a Pepelegoo from Monster World IV that is explicitly called such.
"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

 
Re: What are you playing right now?
I finished most of the Red Faction franchise recently.

Red Faction 1 and Guerrilla are the best games so far in the franchise, and Guerrilla wasn't necessarily to my taste. Meanwhile Red Faction 2 can go die in a fire like the outsourced garbage it is, although there are some gems in it, mostly the voice acting and some really re-memorable cut-scenes. Dunno if I want to bother with Armageddon.

Meanwhile In Super Castlevania IV, I've made it to Death. And he's a real pain in the ass. Maybe I'll beat him on the walk to work today. That or I might return to Castlevania Bloodlines, which I took a hiatus from due to the difficulty in the latter stages starting to really frustrate me.

I also picked up an English translated version of Assault Suit Valken for SNES, and so far it's kinda okay. The difficulty rams up really fast though and the controls are kind of a pain. But atleast it's not throwing the kitchen sink at me like Alien Soldier. Which I should return to at some point.


I started Monster Hunter World on PC, I'm always struck with indecision on which moveset I should main right out of the gate, last time I did Longsword. This time I'm thinking Dual Swords.


 
Re: What are you playing right now?
Finished Quake IV (PC)
Not bad, if you want 7/8 hours of mostly mindless shooting this is the game for you.
The final boss went down easily with the Dark Matter Gun, there was a slightly puzzle-y thing going on in the final phase that threw me off (I tend not to expect puzzle bosses when the game is mostly straightforward) but since this game has multiple quicksave slots it wasn't frustrating like in games that use only checkpoints.
Hehe, same here I spend like 20-30 minutes trying to shoot the thing in various straight forward ways, then when I realized there was a puzzle element to it, it went down in under a minute or so :D

Still, I agree that it was a fun - if mindless, shooter. And (appropriatly) one of the last of the old-style Quake-type 10-guns FPS.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I am getting into some Total War Three Kingdoms, which is a really excellent Total War game so far. 

I really want to play that (especially since I can change the language to Chinese for a more authentic experience and practice my language skills at the same time). But AFAIK the only way to get hold of it is via Steam and that's such a PITA to deal with that it's not worth it.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 
Re: What are you playing right now?
Just finished Outer Wilds. It's a charming game about discovery, set in a child's vision of a solar system. (Distances between planets are measured in kilometers!) It would be completely ruined by spoilers, because the whole point is to discover things yourself; there's no crafting, leveling up, or item collecting. My main criticism is that it's an Epic exclusive.

 
Re: What are you playing right now?
I've been on a cyberpunk/mecha kick lately so some Armored Core and Brigador along with a dose of Dex and Gunpoint. The latter two being very well done pixel art games. Technobabylon is also aces if you're a fan of old school point-click adventure games.

 

Offline Det. Bullock

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  • Madman in a box.
Re: What are you playing right now?
Lately I have been playing Axiom Verge on my laptop.
I started mostly to try the SN30 Pro G I have finally bought after months of hesitation, feels good to finally have a decent d-pad for PC sidescrollers (seriously, the d-pad on the xbox 360 pad sucks compared to basically any other D-pad I tried, which includes a few Meda Drive controller, Gameboy Color, wii and DSi, perhpas only the d-pad on the Gamecube controller comes close and only because it tends to dig into your thumb after a while because it's way too small).
The game itself is a lot more like the first Metroid than Super even though it has a lot of quality of life stuff you still have ordinary enemies that do a LOT of damage even at the start of the game which can be quite annoying if you are just hunting for secret areas. The game is also much less straightforward than other Metroidvanias I have played, it doesn't help that I often forget to use the marker function on the map.
"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 Det. Bullock

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  • Madman in a box.
Re: What are you playing right now?
Axiom Verge (PC)
Is it me or this game is more difficult than most old school metroidvanias?
Even ordinary enemies take out a large chunk of health (some seem to do more damage per hit than the bosses) which can make hunting for secrets really annoying, at least when you die the game saves whatever stuff you managed to get and some of the more annoying enemies can be turned into health dispensers once you get the right weapon.

PS: if you play a lot of 2D sidescrollers on PC the 8bitDo SN30 Pro G is fantastic, way better d-pad than the xbox 360 controller, the triggers don't have analog functionality and act only as buttons but it seemingly has all the other standard Xinput functions including rumble which makes it ideal for modern sidescrollers that assume you have an xbox controller.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2019, 09:15:54 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

  • 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?
Axiom verge is a bit hard.  But I found using a control took a lot of the edge off.
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 Det. Bullock

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  • Madman in a box.
Re: What are you playing right now?
I dabbled a bit with the new DLL wrapper for Tie Fighter 98, now it allows to force LOD and textures to the max possible resolution like it did in X-wing vs Tie Fighter so now the game looks much better with only the bigger objects looking a bit smeared (it also has a Xinput joystick emulation for those that want to use a modern gamepad). If I manage to deal with Axiom Verge and Bloodstained manages to be awful I'm probably going to start a new playthrough on medium (played it on easy at the time) just for the hell of it and to see if some mission bugs have been corrected in the passage from DOS to Windows.
"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

 
Re: What are you playing right now?
I dabbled a bit with the new DLL wrapper for Tie Fighter 98, now it allows to force LOD and textures to the max possible resolution like it did in X-wing vs Tie Fighter so now the game looks much better with only the bigger objects looking a bit smeared (it also has a Xinput joystick emulation for those that want to use a modern gamepad).

0.0 Tell me more.

 

Offline CP5670

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Re: What are you playing right now?
I have been playing Bioshock Infinite. The Columbia setting is very unique and I like how it's not afraid to address sensitive topics. The ending is cool but the last few levels are incongruous with the rest of the game. I wish they had just developed the world of Columbia and the key characters in more depth instead of doing all the alternate universe stuff. The game itself feels like a generic FPS, with a linear, checkpoint-only structure and with most of the character building and choices from the older games stripped out. The Burial at Sea DLCs have great level design and gameplay and I found them a lot more fun to play, but the story makes no sense and is full of contradictions with the main game and Bioshock 1/2. The alternate universes make everything that happens feel inconsequential, since there is always another reality where it didn't happen. I still liked it overall, but would rate it lower than Bioshock 1/2.

Spoiler:
It's supposed to be a big revelation that Booker is Comstock, but it doesn't really mean anything to "be" someone else in this universe, as opposed to not being that person. He has no memories or any of the same ideology as Comstock, and could just as well be anyone else in a different universe. I also didn't like how the DLC retcons Daisy Fitzroy and one of the more thought provoking aspects of the main game, how the Vox Populi and oppressed races become just as bad as the whites after they are set free.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2019, 09:23:29 pm by CP5670 »

 

Offline 0rph3u5

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Re: What are you playing right now?
The ending is cool but the last few levels are incongruous with the rest of the game.

That's actually the game trying to make the ending hit you with additional effect. It's basically going "look left, look up, look down, look right," and then hits you with a left hook. If you replay the game you actually can see how comitted the game is to its own shell game (e.g. every time the Lutece twins appear).

Spoiler:
Actually there is continuity between Comstock and Booker, but is not in their actions but in their character. Both are on a path to self-destruction, and willing to take the whole world with them.

Comstock "killed" himself by being baptised and changing his name. However you can see that his self-erradication was incomplete he tries to re-write his own history through the culture of Columbia, and since the world will always push back against his spin it eventually has to burn.

The Booker(s) you play self-destructed through alcoholism and gambling - which lead to them selling Elizabeth. As you play you are re-writing your history through what is presented as penance by proxy ("Bring us the girl. Wipe away the dept"). On the path to attain your "indulgence" however you uncaringly set the world on fire.

In the end however Elizabeth then turns around and tells you that the forgiveness Booker seeks is unattainable - re-writing the events is not possible through the path either Comstock ("controlling the narrative") or Booker ("indulgence from a proxy") employ BECAUSE neither of them changes the character of Booker/Comstock - it's just actions and words but the man underneath doesn't change.

And that's why the collective of Elizabeths had to kill Booker in a point in time before his "original sin" (the begin of his selfdestructive spiral in both time lines) to change it - knowing the Booker is unable to change.

« Last Edit: June 16, 2019, 02:19:52 am 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 CP5670

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Spoiler:
My issue is that the shell game and "fake" world would be much more interesting and original than the "real" world, if they had been presented as the real world all along. As it is, you run into lots of contradictions if you think about it too much. If Booker/Comstock died early on, then Elizabeth (any of them) was either never born or never went through a tear, and the whole game never happened. For that matter, why can't Booker and Elizabeth be the same person too? In the DLC, she has become a lot like Booker herself with the same "vengeance at all costs" attitude, and eventually dies at the end (twice in fact). Also, why is Sally significant in any way, and is she yet another version of Elizabeth? It's also strange that Booker seems to be the same age, even though Rapture takes place 50 years later (maybe Elizabeth could just open a tear into the future, but he cannot). This is the problem with alternate universes. You can justify anything happening or not happening, so it all feels meaningless.

Apparently the game had a troubled development cycle and many things were added and cut out from the story to put together a released product, and it shows.

 

Offline 0rph3u5

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  • Oceans rise. Empires fall.
Re: What are you playing right now?
On the issue of all the timey-wimey stuff works, follow the scenes with Lutece Twins and the backstory surrouding them:
Spoiler:
The first time you meet them right after arriving in Columbia - they ask Booker to guess on the result of a choin toss, after you did and the coin came up heads(?) they turn around walking away bantering about probalibity and you can acutally see a score of that coin toss experiement, which is like 100 to 1.

The second time is when the approach Elizabeth and gift her one of two broches, which you have to pick. The choice appears to loaded with symbolism but is ultimately inconsequenctial.

Both scenes confirm that the game is runing on version of a deterministic cosmology, despite having a multiverse ("There is always a lighthouse" or something like that). However, as said before, determinism is not one of action and word but only concerns character traits and subsquent patterns of behavior of principal characters. The situations way vary when making the side-ways steps through universes but the people are always the same.

As for the temporal sequence:
When you examine the Luteces' lab you get backstory of how they are actually two of them - as originally there was only one but in the investigation of Elizabeth's power (which only exists because she doesn't belong into the universe she is in - "The univese doesn't like it if you mix it's [something]"). In order to explore the mechanics of that ability Lutece made contact with an alternate version of herself, which happened to male. However because their experiments were sabotaged they both got "removed" from original universes, and stand apart from normal conceptions of time and space. Which is also why they seeming only ever interact with Booker and Elizabeth during the game.

Their removal from a "normal" space-time-framework is a fact which you can find them debating as they appear to be digging (up) their own graves in the Columbia Cemetary - which at the time appears kinda non-sensical as they are debating the finer points of grammatically expressing their situation, i.e. in which tense to express their observations of what "now" for the player.

With that in mind you can actually see that continuum of the Elizabeths might actually be in same situation as the Luteces by the end of the game - that's also what explains their sudden insight into their situation. And if you look closely at the end, the Elizabeths don't blink out of existence at the same time but individually. To me that always suggested that basically all Elizabeth's are becoming a single transcendant entity, but there is also the interpretation that they just disperse like a normal crowd, but across universes and not across space in one.

re Who are the "real" Elizabeth and Booker:
Spoiler:
Through the application of multiverse theory here all versions of Booker and Elizabeth are real in their own context. There is no "true" singular timeline or universe but all variations are equally real. The determinism the game establishes as a rule doesn't change that, as the fixed qualites are content of everyone's characters not their actions or statements: All vairations of Booker/Comstock act out the same patterns of behavior because despite variations in the situation, they are the same people.

Now that opens up a big questions regarding when actually said content of character was fixed - as the game in its text doesn't provide an answer, as the continuum of Elizabeths chooses the point in time to kill Booker/Comstock through a consequentialist method - going only so far back as to eliminate all possible timelines in which Booker/Comstock and any Elizabeth would interact - rather than making a decision on principle that e.g. would required them to prevent Booker/Comstock even being born.
But then again - the story is self-contained and internally consistent without resolving that question.

As for Burial at Sea, re Sally:
Spoiler:
Sally is that universes version of Booker's penance by proxy, that timelines "Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt." - it's basically how that Elizabeth confirms that Rapture-Booker is actually a Booker.
That he takes that case and how Episode 1 plays out affirms that that Booker is just like Comstock and the Booker that rescues Elizabeth in Columbia - and his escape to Rapture, a consequence-free, non-judgemental envoirment, did nothing to change that - actually it highly consistent with how Comstock/Booker try to live a world in which they are not accountable for their own past actions.

re Rapture-Elizabeth: (Tinfoil Hat Level of speculation incoming)
Spoiler:
Note that Episode 2 never confirms a timeline for or affirms the reality of the scenes in Paris - that the Paris scene immideatly descents into nightmare suggests that it is some kind of fantasy or dream.

As such it is unclear if the Elizabeth that tracks Booker to Rapture comes from a time after the continuum of Elizabeths "attains transcendence". It may very well be that she is version of Elizabeth that was never rescued by a Booker (her tear powers however suggest that she was sold to a Comstock and transfered across dimensions), but then through her powers learnt that this had/would happen to another Elizabeth but not to her. This would also explain why she is so resentful of Rapture-Booker (because see above).

And also, to re-interate the point about "multiverse but with determinism" the transplantation of all character to Rapture and into what are decades into their own future, is actually inconsequential - Booker will be Booker regardless of situation because his character is the fixed quantity.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2019, 06:35:26 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 Mongoose

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Re: What are you playing right now?
Started Breath of the Wild. See you in a few hundred hours.