What are you playing at the moment? 2011 - September 2017

[Wenz]

It’s weird the faded never got a decent video, they are all crap, not even some stupid youtuber attention

[LexW]

Dead Cells!
Dead Cells!
Dead Cells!

I’m kind of feeling bitter about Dead Cells at this point, because it’s sort of ruined a lot of other games for me. It’s like, yeah, I could play Cryptark, it’s cool and all, and I love being a floaty mech in space but… I could just play Dead Cells and it’s like 5x as intense and exciting and cool. Same for various other Indie and AAA games…

Hold on anyway booting Dead Cells…

[alms]

I’ve fired up Stardew Valley to see how well the game lined up against my recollection of it. What do I know, I’m not so far from Summer, now. That’s addictive for you.

I can see why some think it’s relaxing, at the same time the game does actually and constantly presses the player for time, because everything goes so slowly on the macro-schedule, that every waste of time and energy on the micro-schedule has a chance to build up on the macro scale.

Also, it does make the player start off as dirt poor, with almost nothing, in a world where everything costs good money right from the get go.

Seeds are expensive, so just to get your farming going you need to spend. In fact, in hindsight, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have put farming on the backburner and use foraging to fund a chicken coop instead.

And it’s just reliant on player’s knowledge, in my mind clearly a game that’s supposed to be replayed many times over.

[coldvvvave]

XCOM2: War of the Chosen dudes, if I play the expansion without playing vanilla, do I miss much?

You lose a smooth sense of progression I guess. You lose a game that can be marathoned in ironman because its just the right size and you can’t easily roll back doom meter (you can in WotC) so you have to rush it. My main problem with WotC is that only good thing I gained with it is good performance which obviously should have been there from the start. Everything else to me felt tacked on and content for the sake of content. For example why add sewers? Who thought it was a good idea?

I know it adds TOOOONS of stuff and it might feel cluttered to me, but do I lose much of minimalist vanilla experience?

I think it was more streamlined than minimalist, XCOM2 had plenty of content. WotC feels extremely bloated and all over the place, sometimes I feel like I’m playing some fan mod. Which is weird because at least pre-release Long War stuff always felt like a commercial product and now official expansion feels like some total conversion.

XCOM:Enemy Within expansion felt like the better game, for example.

Yep.

[coldvvvave]

doublepost.

[Viral_Frog]

I’m kind of feeling bitter about Dead Cells at this point, because it’s sort of ruined a lot of other games for me. It’s like, yeah, I could play Cryptark, it’s cool and all, and I love being a floaty mech in space but… I could just play Dead Cells and it’s like 5x as intense and exciting and cool. Same for various other Indie and AAA games…

Hold on anyway booting Dead Cells…

I actually just uninstalled Cryptark, but at no fault of Dead Cells. Cryptark is great for various reasons, but it’s just not what I want from that type of game at all. It’s too slow and methodical. If I wanted that type of experience, I would play a turn-based game and not a procgen, realtime, roguelike.

I thoroughly enjoy Dead Cells. But I’m starting to think it’s being a bit overhyped by a lot of people. It is fantastic, it’s smooth, it’s a solid experience. But I don’t see it as being this revitalizing an experience as many people say it is. Sure, I sort of felt that way at the beginning, but the shine wore off and now it’s just another great game. Not anything more than any other great game.

For example, I still personally think Enter the Gungeon is superior. They’re completely different styles of games, but they have a common goal. They evoke the same sort of feelings of tension and fast paced, frantic action. And of the two, I find that Gungeon does it better.

The biggest thing keeping me leaning towards Gungeon are unlockables. Dead Cells has, by far, some of the least rewarding unlockable items I have ever seen in a game. Half of it feels worthless to me. I have 5-6 different items that I want to find. The rest I will either ignore or just pick up until I find better. Sure, a lot of stuff in Gungeon can be fairly weak, but even some of the crappiest items can be fun to use, or have synergies that make them much better.

Dead Cells still has plenty of time to improve on that before launch. And even with unlocks being the weakest aspect (and really, the only weak aspect), the game is still incredible. I’m just starting to feel a lot less bedazzled by it as my time played goes up.

On to the subject of what I’m playing: Grim Dawn as a Demo/Occultist (forget the class name). Aiming for a dual wield gunslinger. The build I found is called “the Brimstone Gunslinger”, which is obviously pretty awesome and the reason I chose this build. It is far and away superior in every way to the Demo/Soldier (Commando) builds I have tried in the past. I don’t think I’ll ever play a Commando again after this. But now it does have me curious about other classes, since I’ve not branched out much. I’m level 16, so not quite done with Burrwicht yet. I’m not quite able to dual wield yet. I’m guessing I’ll get the blueprint I need for the relic around level 30 or so.

I’ve also started sidetracking in Prey. I was headed towards the final quest but decided I wanted to do all the side quests I had saved up. Which, I’ll admit, is completely uncharacteristic of me. I don’t generally go for any side quests that take me out of the way of the main objective but… I don’t want it to be over yet. I want more neuromods for more skills. I want to finish off the exact build I had in mind before I finish. It helps that I absolutely love Talos I, every section I’ve been to (all of them now), the gameplay is on point, and the overall atmosphere is just incredible.

Also installed The Age of Decadence but that’s as far as I’ve gone there.

[noiseredux]

Dragon Age Origins did have the camera option. I played through it zoomed out like Baldur’s Gate.

[alms]

For example, I still personally think Enter the Gungeon is superior. They’re completely different styles of games, but they have a common goal. They evoke the same sort of feelings of tension and fast paced, frantic action. And of the two, I find that Gungeon does it better.

I don’t perceive Dead Cells as frantic, more like executing a fast, complex dance beautifully. When I’m playing well, I feel in control, full focus mode: a similar feeling as doing the same in Dark.

If I’m playing frantically, chances are I’ll be dead (again) soon.

I guess sometimes you can get out on top, but it being a roguelike, you don’t get the instant-restart to checkpoint button, death is hardly a zero (or negligible) cost as it is in, say, Hotline Miami.

[Viral_Frog]

I don’t perceive Dead Cells as frantic, more like executing a fast, complex dance beautifully. When I’m playing well, I feel in control, full focus mode: a similar feeling as doing the same in Dark.

If I’m playing frantically, chances are I’ll be dead (again) soon.

I guess sometimes you can get out on top, but it being a roguelike, you don’t get the instant-restart to checkpoint button, death is hardly a zero (or negligible) cost as it is in, say, Hotline Miami.

I feel similarly in control when I play Enter the Gungeon as I do with Dead Cells. I guess frantic isn’t exactly the word for it.

[alms]

I feel similarly in control when I play Enter the Gungeon as I do with Dead Cells. I guess frantic isn’t exactly the word for it.

It’s on my wishlist, although I’m partly skeptical because I didn’t do so well with Nuclear Throne, I suspect top-down shooters, on average, don’t appeal to me as much.

[Baines]

I thoroughly enjoy Dead Cells. But I’m starting to think it’s being a bit overhyped by a lot of people. It is fantastic, it’s smooth, it’s a solid experience. But I don’t see it as being this revitalizing an experience as many people say it is. Sure, I sort of felt that way at the beginning, but the shine wore off and now it’s just another great game. Not anything more than any other great game.

We seem to finally be reaching the point where people are starting to be critical of Dead Cells design.

For example, here is a video making the argument that Dead Cells isn’t actually that good at the “metroidvania” part of its “rogue-lite metroidvania” formula. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpceV7GD6fg

[Viral_Frog]

It’s on my wishlist, although I’m partly skeptical because I didn’t do so well with Nuclear Throne, I suspect top-down shooters, on average, don’t appeal to me as much.

They’re similar in style, but the gameplay is a little different in a few key areas. In Nuclear Throne, I feel like you need to be more tactical in your approach. You still need some lightning fast reflexes, but overall it’s more about knowing when to push and when to hang back. (And sometimes it’s about spawning into an impossible situation due to the ProcGen. Something that doesn’t happen in Gungeon) Another key is to know where to find and how to use the shortcuts. They skip entire zones, which makes the overall game easier. The more levels you complete, the higher the difficulty goes, so abusing shortcuts is essential (unless you want it to be more difficult).

Gungeon is more focused on your reflexes and timing. Knowing when to dodge roll, how to weave through mazes of projectiles, and learning the hidden synergies of the items you find along the way. There’s a TON of variety in the guns, passive, and active items as well. Throne has quite a bit of variety in its weapons and abilities, but it’s nowhere near the same. Gungeon has quite a few secret areas, but they’re not necessarily essential.

Overall though, if you didn’t jive with Nuclear Throne then I’d say you probably wouldn’t with Gungeon, either. They’re both pretty much cut from the same cloth.

[theantmeister]

So I made it out of the crematorium into The Hive in Planescape Torment. Lurching around in a zombie disguise is not the fastest way around.

The writing in this game is great so far. I walked into the Gathering Dust bar (ho ho) and got into a conversation about wanting to die (or not) with a Dustman named Awaiting Death (or something). After playing Bethesda RPGs for years, I was expecting the dialogue choices to be disappointing at best and I certainly wan’t expecting to see what I wanted to say, but I’ll be damned if the exact answer I wanted wasn’t right there. That really goes a long way to immersing you in the game world, you know?

Speaking of the game world - The Hive is horrible. Random thugs keep trying to kill me and Collectors all want my corpse! I guess there’s that dear Midwife, but I suspect she just wants my kidneys or something…

[Heliocentric]

I guess there’s that dear Midwife, but I suspect she just wants my kidneys or something…

Just… Keep playing, I’m saying nothing

[Naramsin]

I started my second campaign of XCOM2. It’s a great game, not doubt about it, at least I get a lot of kicks from it. I still dont like Dark Avater timer, I hate these mechanics. I am used to old UFO:TFTD formula, sure I can loose aquanauts left and right but game is not snowballing to be harder and harder and falling into unsalavgable pit. Also you can quickly get back to your feet in TFTD and you decide at what time you gonna tackle T’leth.

Witcher1 is great bar atrocious prologue and weak first act. Combat is simple but it grew on me, thanks to interesting leveling system and fact that when you upgrade your group style, heads just roll. Thematically it is best Witcher game in some way, maybe bar HotS DLC for W3. I even like swamps, it’s mundane and unappealing location but it fits Geralt world perfectly.

[Shadoko]

I even like swamps, it’s mundane and unappealing location but it fits Geralt world perfectly.

Thematically the swamps are great. Their real problem is that they combine most of TW1’s problems in one place. Namely :
-The swamps are a performance killer. Especially when it rains. And that’s in a game that already runs poorly on modern systems.
-If you don’t pick your quests carefully you’ll end up with *lots *of backtracking and going back and forth between Vizima and the swamps and it’s not like you can fast-travel there. You need to go through the lenghty cutscene.
-It has some extremely annoying enemies, between the respawning, low-level drowners that keep appearing and the seal-like things that do bleed damage and are impervious to stunning.

[aoanla]

I started my second campaign of XCOM2. It’s a great game, not doubt about it, at least I get a lot of kicks from it. I still dont like Dark Avater timer, I hate these mechanics. I am used to old UFO:TFTD formula, sure I can loose aquanauts left and right but game is not snowballing to be harder and harder and falling into unsalavgable pit. Also you can quickly get back to your feet in TFTD and you decide at what time you gonna tackle T’leth.

I’m not sure that’s not true - there’s no “countdown to You Fail arbitrarily” in UFO:TFTD or EU, but there’s a progression in the alien forces you encounter over time, which is strictly linked to the month you’re on.
If you manage to get to May or so in either game without having researched at least some mid-tier technologies, then you are definitely in an unsalvageable pit.
(The thing that makes things worse in Firaxis Xcom is that your troops themselves also become valuable resources with training, not just people who use your awesome research; not the doom ticker.)

[TomxJ]

The writing in this game is great so far. I walked into the Gathering Dust bar (ho ho) and got into a conversation about wanting to die (or not) with a Dustman named Awaiting Death (or something). After playing Bethesda RPGs for years, I was expecting the dialogue choices to be disappointing at best and I certainly wan’t expecting to see what I wanted to say, but I’ll be damned if the exact answer I wanted wasn’t right there. That really goes a long way to immersing you in the game world, you know?

Makes me wish I was an Amnesiac Immortal just so I can experience what you’re experiencing again.

**The Flame in the Flood **has a fantastic Soundtrack by Chuck Ragan, providing an hour or so of extrmely pretty white water rafting and light crafting. Its a Don’t Starve *-alike *which means i’ll hate it after I die once. But until then I’ll mooch about to bluegrass picking the local flora.

I am literally invincible in Risen 3 now. No joke, with some shield rune ontop of my stats I can just stand there whilst a Shadow Lord hits me around the head repeatedly to no avail. I reckon i’ll have this saving the southern seas business wrapped up within the week.

[Viral_Frog]

All the talk that’s been going on about XCOM 2 and WotC has made me want to play XCOM again. But since I absolutely hated 2 and don’t have the expansion, I went with XCOM: Enemy Unknown. I’ve never actually finished a campaign. I’ve come extremely close while never having come close to a loss. The issue is that back when I first started playing, I was also still buying a ridiculous number of games and getting sidetracked.

Anyway, off to a great start. Started in North America. Keeping panic levels in order, have access to better weapons and, in a few in-game days, better armor. Have upgraded my aircrafts a bit as well as put some satellites up. I have not lost a single unit and everyone on my roster is Corporal or higher.

I think if I’m able to stay the course on this campaign, I may actually try out the Long War mod. I’m confident I’ll be able to stick it out on this, since I no longer buy ridiculous numbers of games.

Also didn’t get a chance to play anymore Prey or Grim Dawn. Had my sons over for the weekend and spent yesterday watching (American) football with them. By the time I had them back to their mom, I was exhausted and decided to binge on BoJack Horseman’s new season on Netflix instead of playing any games.

[Ben121]

Just saw this new Indie Game called Luxumbra. It’s a new card game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9CIZDnU1A0 What do you guys think of it?