What are you playing at the moment?

[ToomuchFluffy]

It is done, I have escaped the Darkwood.

I was honestly surprised that I had such an easy time getting back into it after weeks of absence. I definitely enjoyed it overall, though the experience was somewhat similar to Subnautica for me insofar as it could be frustrating at times. Or simply not a particularly enjoyable experience. What was similar in both games was that it could be difficult to know where to go or what to do. Perhaps less so in Darkwood. The game is simply smaller. I would say that I enjoyed Subnautica’s environments and atmosphere more, but it’s a slightly unfair comparison of course. Darkwood’s ressource gathering and crafting seemed handled better since there is a certain scarcity, but not enough to really f***k over the player. And the process was never grindy. On the other hand, Subnautica has the base-building, so you could really do a lot with those ressources, even if it got annoying at times. With Darkwood a lot of the frustration did come from the clunky melee combat, which wasn’t an issue with Subnautica. But Darkwood was also fairly forgiving on Normal. Sure, if you die somewhere far away from the hide-out, it can be problematic, but usually I didn’t have issues with that.

I would definitely recommend it. The game has a great feel to it. It’s like a dark fantasy horror fairy tale, which is especially apparent from the visual design of the strange characters living in the forest.

[Sarfrin]

I’m a bit further on in AC Valhalla and warming to Eivor as the plot develops. I do think this game benefits from having fewer distractions from the main plot. Or at least making them less intrusive. They are there but they’re mostly just places on the map rather than side quests so if you choose to ignore them they fade from view rather easily.
The plot itself seems to be more interesting too.

[Skalpadda]

I felt it was time to tear myself away from the numbercrunching of Anno for a bit, so I started playing The Outer Worlds in the past week. I didn’t have much in the way of expectations going in, I hadn’t read or seen much about it and the reception seemed to range from “meh” to “good but not great” back when it released and the epic/MS exclusivity ultimately put me off (not because I have any hate for either, but I already have too many games in too many places).

So far I’m enjoying it a lot. It started out a bit wobbly and trying to be too “wacky”, but once it got going and more characters got involved it’s settled into a groove that’s more just a quirky fun space adventure. The comparison I kept seeing was always Fallout but outside running around and shooting/looting in a first person perspective it doesn’t play much like those games at all. If people were really wanting Bethesda Fallouts or New Vegas in space I can understand why they’d be disappointed but I’m glad it’s not that.

It did remind me of something else though, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I left the first planet. It’s KotOR. Aside from the real-time combat and FPS mechanics it feels a lot like KotOR 1&2 to me. It has 68% more silliness and 100% fewer space wizards (so far at least) but the structure of both the game world and the quests within it has a lot in common with KotOR, and the companions feel very KotOR-y to me as well. Even the corporate absurdity feels a lot like the Czerka corporation quests in those games.

I’m a bit further on in AC Valhalla and warming to Eivor as the plot develops.

Eivor is such a grandma name in Sweden these days I always get flashes of a potentially more interesting game where you play an old lady viking whenever people talk about AC: Valhalla. Despite the potential for meta-progressiveness I think my cognitive dissonance would prevent me from playing male Eivor if I ever pick it up.

In order to progress the Railroad quest, I need to progress the Institute quest (not sure how many times; the guy I’m waiting for is certainly taking his time) and the next stage will make the Brotherhood permanently hostile, so that’s … nice.

Yeah, that’s the way it goes. You can’t stay friends with all the factions if you want to advance the main quest past a certain point. My problem was that I didn’t really like any of the factions all that much, but I also never finished the main quest (which is par for the course for me, the only Bethesda game where I have is Fallout 3 and that was a waste of time).

The Brothehood really are amazingly useless in FO4. The main feature they have is getting their vertibirds shot out of the sky by handgun fire and crashing on your head every 10 minutes.

[Similar]

Yeah, that’s the way it goes. You can’t stay friends with all the factions if you want to advance the main quest past a certain point.

That’s okay too, it’s just really impossible to predict when point of no return arrives. I had to go back to a save from around four hours earlier, so I could finish Danse’s plotline before the Brotherhood became hostile. That was a tad annoying.

I think I eventually saw most of the different plotlines for the Brotherhood, Institute and Railroad, at least up to the point where some of them got hostile (though, I wonder if you can save Scribe Haylen. I didn’t really like meeting her as an enemy).

My problem was that I didn’t really like any of the factions all that much, but I also never finished the main quest (which is par for the course for me, the only Bethesda game where I have is Fallout 3 and that was a waste of time).

oh, yes. I blew up the Institute and the Brotherhood, which was kind of satisfying, but having the Railroad ‘win’ doesn’t give me any great pleasure. They’re not bad, just … not so exciting. The most interesting person there died.

Probably the Minutemen are nice enough, I just can’t really stand Preston and, especially, the Longs at this point (I tried starting them in my current game, but after saving them from the raiders in Concord and escorting them to Sanctuary, the first thing Preston does is tell you to help out a settlement AND set up Sanctuary, because he’s ‘busy’. And then he does absolutely nothing, of course. So I loaded a save from earlier and went back to ignoring them).

They’re all ordering you around while doing basically nothing. Of course, that’s a problem in most RPGs, but it’s still annoying.

I also went back to having Codsworth as a companion. Cait and Piper are nice, but after a while you get a bit tired of hearing the same lines (though it felt like Piper suddenly got a bunch of new ones at one point). Codsworth with two of his eyes replaced with a minigun and a gatling laser (while keeping his three normal arms too) is really quite effective and he also doesn’t get too repetitive.

The Brothehood really are amazingly useless in FO4. The main feature they have is getting their vertibirds shot out of the sky by handgun fire and crashing on your head every 10 minutes.

hehe. They really are very good at hitting you. I could understand it if a dying pilot wanted to take out one last enemy, but they hit me when I was a member too. Maybe I’m just the most obvious thing around in my Nuka Quantum power armor…

Not really sure what to do now. Still have a ton of companions and their quests to do, if those can be finished now that the Institute and the Brotherhood are gone, but I don’t know

[BillButNotBen]

Eivor is such a grandma name in Sweden these days I always get flashes of a potentially more interesting game where you play an old lady viking whenever people talk about AC: Valhalla. Despite the potential for meta-progressiveness I think my cognitive dissonance would prevent me from playing male Eivor if I ever pick it up.

I have a similar problem, but every time I read the name it conjures up:

Not sure if the pronunciation is the same, but I don’t think I could take the game seriously.

[coldvvvave]

I’ve been playing since the initial release (on and off) and it has come a LONG WAY. I see it as the most hardcore XCOM style game out there + the most involved and in depth. Not for casuals in the slightest. Requires a huge amount of planning (keeping track of where you are on the research tree, the stats of various equipment, the path to victory with your chosen faction, the class makeup of each of your squads and heaps more).

It’s not one to lightly touch on. It’s a very hardcore experience. If your looking for a Firaxis or Microprose XCOM experience you aint gonna find it I’m afraid, as this one has a experience all to it’s own, for better or worse. For a starting play through I’d recommend switching off all the DLC and going for the vanilla experience. Play through it, and if you survive all the way to the end, then and only then switch the DLC on for later play throughs. Play on rookie as well.

Turning off DLCs was a great advice, thanks. The game becomes much more of a focused experience.

So far I had two ill-fated playthroughs on Hero difficulty (not ironman of course, I do restart missions relatively often) and both times I got destroyed by a sudden appearance of a Scylla with just no chance of fighting back. Had to make some adjustments. I kind of understood that first time I got way behind on tech and alien capture so in my second attempt I tried to fix those problems but fell behind again. And then early in my third game I realized that I completely missed that I can upgrade my troops beyond just picking perks by putting points into strength, will and speed (I swear this sort of thing never happened to me in any game so far and I’ve been playing pc games since '94) AND I did by accident learn how to recruit faction troops. Which means that before my soldiers were slow, easy to panic, low on willpower points and didn’t carry much equipment, also I didn’t have access to kickass units like priests, engineers and berserkers. Oh well. Eventually I defeated the Scylla in two fights without any problem (unless you count game freezing forever in enemy activity phase after Scylla fled for the first time) and captured a live one on the next. It’s probably time to get a second full squad as game forces me to be in three places at a time, often I can’t even get to a mission before it expires.

If your looking for a Firaxis or Microprose XCOM experience you aint gonna find it I’m afraid, as this one has a experience all to it’s own, for better or worse

I dunno, I think it’s very similar in combat. I dash my assault to flank with a shotgun, heavies shred armor and spam nades, snipers are supporting from afar and spam pistols up close. It feels ok when all works properly and becomes meditative after a while just not as mechanically slick as nu-XCOM. Only overwatch in PP is really underwhelming. It has to be used surgically to work, otherwise my soldiers end up shooting the enemy in a center of mass while it is still mostly behind the corner, which is fine but I usually just don’t bother with it. Most enemies so far just run at you without too much regard for cover anyway.

A few side points:

• I don’t like looking up guides on single player games so yeah not the games fault there was stuff I completely missed. Though a better interface would have surely helped, in the end it’s my fault. Interface still sucks. Takes way too much time to understand stuff.

• Pandoran nests missions are infuriatingly slow and tedious while not hard or engaging at all.

• Charons spamming me with freaking worms/goo from across the map are just an unholy amounts of bs. Slows down the already slow game even more. At least do it every few turns not every single one.

• Enemy variety is not very good even with mutations. Also I don’t like enemy design. They don’t look scary at all and god knows there were some pieces of art with horrifying creatures coming out of the sea. Phoenix Point crabmen are not scary at all. Scylla is mostly just huge monstrosity but it was clearly voiced by one of the developers and it’s roar just makes me laugh.

• Base defense missions are stupid. Seriously, you get a 24h heads up which is too generous BUT your troops are scattered through the base for no reason whatsoever. I mean in original X-Com: UFO Defense it was because the attack was sudden. Here it’s another pointless thing to worry about as your combat troops can spawn in some far away building while some unarmed extra can be almost in an access lift from where enemy advances.

• I wish someone made a mod that speeds up animations. Yeah, I know it wouldn’t be as easy to make as in nu-XCOM (mods like Stop Wasting My Time are essential there along with Gotcha Mod). But one enemy with a pistol shooting at your soldier four times takes like a minute.

• I miss timed mission already, lol.

[Sarfrin]

Not sure if the pronunciation is the same, but I don’t think I could take the game seriously.

It’s pronounced Eh-vor in game. It’s not very similar to Ivor the Engine, although the weather is often miserable. Any similarity there is ends pretty effectively the first time you gut someone with their own sword.

[Skalpadda]

They’re all ordering you around while doing basically nothing. Of course, that’s a problem in most RPGs, but it’s still annoying.

Yeah, the Railroad and Minutemen are sympathetic good guys but they’re kind of useless without you. I guess it partly comes down to Bethesda’s obsession with putting the player in charge of absolutely every organisation they join up with.

I think the companion quests were among the things I liked most about FO4, but most of them felt kind of insubstantial and then they’d railroad you into the really awkward and mechanical “romances”. It was kind of disturbing to have people come up and try to tell me personal secrets as some kind of awkward flirting attempt every time I entered one of my settlements.

Not sure if the pronunciation is the same, but I don’t think I could take the game seriously.

I don’t know how the game does it, but we’d pronounce “Ei” more or less as the English pronounce the standalone letter A, so more like A-vor. I don’t know how well that’d represent actual old norse though.

Standard Swedish and Norwegian don’t have built-in dipthongs (some accents/dialects do); so if you want one you have to explicitly write the sounds out. It’s really easy to spot native English speakers speaking Swedish because it seems impossible to get the vowels right and they usually insert dipthongs everywhere.

I’d totally play a game about a viking who was also a train engine though.

[Sarfrin]

I’d totally play a game about a viking who was also a train engine though

“That’s not a tattoo, it’s coal dust!”

[DeekyFun]

I’m jumping between a few games at the moment; fiddlying around with the New Threat Mod for Final Fantasy 7, pushing along through Yakuza Zero, a bit of Open X-Com, and the continual improvements and rennovation work in Planet Zoo.

All that was interrupted over last few days as my brain wanted something else. That something was Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, and game I’ve played through a number of times already on PS4. I’m not sure why it called to me - I can’t recall the trigger. It could be I just fancied something low maintenance. Walking around the empty village and surrounding countryside evokes similar feelings to the country-tinged rambles I make in real life - a sort of mild adventurousness into the (relatively) safe unknowns of places that you kind of already know. They did a good job with this one, it feels faithful. At the same time, just looking at the map (I swear, everyone who lived in Yaughton is obsessed with maps of it, they’re quite literally everywhere) and playing through, it’s clearly ‘designed’. But in the moment, it feels like a place.

I enjoy the radio-play story bites as well; it’s fun to piece the bits together through the audio and sutble bits of environmental story telling. I’m fascinated by trying to uncover every morsel; I’m looking for the characters houses, and trying to piece together a timeline. This is all mostly happening in my head. It’s one of my favourite story telling styles in gaming, letting you do a bit of the work means you’re paying a bit more attention. There are a few things that don’t quite make sense to me. For example, there are bees. Why are there bees? How are they still here? I ended up typing ‘Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture How Did The Bees Survive’ into Google. This came up with nothing, and I’m still in the dark. But this is a sign that a game has got it’s claws into me. Also, Harvey. What happened to Harvey?

It’s not a game for everyone. It’s slow. Bullet time in treacle slow. Donald Trump synapses Slow. You can speed up the walking, a bit, but it’s really a game that wants you to walk not run. Also, the gameplay is very very light. It’s a walking sim - we’re all aware of the foibles that comes with. But it’s my jam; I dig the world, the story and the general vibe of the thing. It’s been a nice break from the angsty Yakuza.

[icemann]

If your looking for a Firaxis or Microprose XCOM experience you aint gonna find it I’m afraid, as this one has a experience all to it’s own, for better or worse

I dunno, I think it’s very similar in combat. I dash my assault to flank with a shotgun, heavies shred armor and spam nades, snipers are supporting from afar and spam pistols up close. It feels ok when all works properly and becomes meditative after a while just not as mechanically slick as nu-XCOM. Only overwatch in PP is really underwhelming. It has to be used surgically to work, otherwise my soldiers end up shooting the enemy in a center of mass while it is still mostly behind the corner, which is fine but I usually just don’t bother with it. Most enemies so far just run at you without too much regard for cover anyway.

Absolutely. In combat it’s quite similar. What I meant was with the other stuff. Like with the factions, needing to upgrade your troops with points to better their stats etc etc.

Some tips:

• New Jericho has the best armor for heavies - So either ally up with them to gain access to it, steal the tech (you lose MAJOR reputation with them if you do this), or do it the easy way, which is recruiting 2 heavies from them. You need 2 of an armor type to be able to research it in most cases. Much later on, you’ll want mounted weapons on your heavies. These make short work of large groups of enemies in 1 shot. New Jericho has the best assault armor also.
• Synedrion has the best sniper armor, and the best sniper weapon (Pythagoras VII)
• If you just want access to all gear and classes, get to allied with all 3 factions
• Try to take out the Pandoran bases soon as your aware of them
• Using recruitment is a fast way to gain access to a lot of faction tech far quicker than it would take you to get it via gaining reputation
• On rookie you can get by just fine for a long time with manticore ships (and thus 6 person squads). Squad I recommend - 2 heavies, 2 snipers, 1 technician, 1 assault
• In most cases going assault as second class works best due to the dash ability.
• Having a heavy multi-classed with sniper can be handy in the late game due to one of the final abilities they get, which allows you to unload an entire clip of ammo into a single enemy. Used on Scylla’s or other large enemies can substantially drop their health. Having at least 1-2 of these spec’d troops is very very helpful late game.
• For your assault guys, go long range assault weapon and shotgun. Having a secondary weapon (when you have upped their strength stat high enough to be able to carry both + the ammo and armor) is essential later on
• Once you have a few bases, try to have at least 2 food production facilities per base. This is as food is your no.1 tradeable resource. You’ll be using this most to trade for your essential stuff.

Handy resources:

Path to victory and full research list - https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/xboxone/266098-phoenix-point/faqs/78209
Full tech tree - https://aws1.discourse-cdn.com/standard10/uploads/snapshotgames/original/2X/5/50d790298abccbbe67418713791486361196fa4f.png
RPS Tips - https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/12/09/phoenix-point-guide-20-tips-for-new-players-and-xcom-veterans-alike-2/

Note that all tips and above handy resources relate only to the vanilla game. The first link was a FAQ that I put together as there was no details on any of that on the net at the time. Use the tech tree as your main resource in helping you reach your chosen path. I found it to be super handy.

And I streamed my rookie run of the game here:

[Similar]

I think the companion quests were among the things I liked most about FO4, but most of them felt kind of insubstantial and then they’d railroad you into the really awkward and mechanical “romances”.

yeah, it’s very check list, and if you do romance one of them, nothing changes either, aside from being able to get “Lover’s Embrace”. It’s sad there isn’t more depth to it all because the companions do add a lot.

It was kind of disturbing to have people come up and try to tell me personal secrets as some kind of awkward flirting attempt every time I entered one of my settlements.

The best one so far was Cait in my last game. We’d just saved a certain someone in Vault 81 and the doctor and the overseer were giving me their heartfelt speeches to finish off the quest, but I didn’t hear any of it because Cait had chosen that moment to open her heart to me.

I started over (…), this time to try a mod with a new companion who is supposed to be a bit more fluid (fully voiced and everything too). Not very far yet, but it’s probably limited how much things can be improved.

[ToomuchFluffy]

I tried some Immortal Defense a few days ago and even though the concept is interesting, in the end it required way too much senseless clicking and the visual style was hyperactive and way too flashy for my liking. It’s a somewhat strange Tower Defense game.

Then I tried some Cossacks, but whenever I adjusted anything in the options, the game/s (European Wars and Art of War) just broke on me. Either I couldn’t adjust the resolution anymore or I got stuck on slow speed when I had only intended to adjust the game speed as opposed to putting it in an entirely slower mode. Reinstalling fixed it, but I wasn’t willing to do that every time I ran into an issue. In any case, “Heroes of Annihilated Empires” is basically the fantasy version of Cossacks and I think the flavor and the diverse factions of that one are more to my liking anyway.

So I eventually just settled on Shadow Warrior 2 and I have been playing that for maybe eight hours so far. I could probably say one or two negative things about it, but for the most part I’m enjoying myself too much as that I would want to do that right now. I’ve just rearranged my weapons selection and the upgrades on them and then finished off for today. I reckon I will have a good amount of fun the next few days. I just need to take care to not do too many side objectives.

[Det.Bullock]

I’ve been playing Hollow Knight and I’m starting to suspect that I’ve reached the limit when it comes to the difficulty of the bosses. I wonder why so many people look at SOTN and instead of recognizing the possibility of becoming a god like slayer of monsters by exploring carefully being a feature they treat it as a bug and make the game more difficult towards the end than at the start. It probably doesn’t help that the attack button on my pad has started to bind and any spare part would take at least a month to get delivered where I live.

[sonson]

Who’s giving you trouble?

[Det.Bullock]

Who’s giving you trouble?

For a while it was the traitor lord (then I managed), now it’s the bee knight (or whatever his name is). In the meanwhile I went about doing other stuff, like the delicate flower achievement for example (though I looked that up because I had a minor spoiler that left me puzzled as to what was that about).

[sonson]

The Flower is by far the hardest thing to do. It’s like having to do an insta kill boss fight for 10 minutes in respect to the level of concentration it requires f you and the complete absence of any grace period . If you can do that you can definitely do any of the other bosses : )

The main thing I found with the harder bosses was that I was playing with a build which wasnt remotely optimal, some of them are substantially easier with weird notch combinations that work well in one very specific context.

Bosses tend to be split between being either attritional fights, in which the skill is 90% avoiding stuff which is usually 2/3 hit kill stuff and one insta kill move but fairly well telegraphed followed by a pretty small but stable window to hurt and heal. The First Mantis’ fight is like this. Once you have the patterns down theres a lot of DOT notches that help to wear them down outside of your attack window.

The other are fights where the attacks are not as heavy damage but pretty relentless and without a natural pause where you can heal or beat them up, so in those cases you need to think more in terms of it being a constant riposte/counter attack sort of mentality. You’ll get cut to ribbons quickly if you’re not aggressive in these, the natural moment to strike safely never comes. It’s a Glass Cannnon duel basically. Building for defence in these is pointless. Like that fucking robot guy in the Mines, by far the hardest boss as far as I’m concerned.

The Bee is the second, a pretty standard fencing/damage race, so anything that gives you good reach and quick attacks is best. Steady Body is something I basically never used in general but for these fights its invaluable because it keeps you from losing ground and getting pushed into a corner and blitzkrieged to death.

If you haven’t got Shade Cloak yet it makes all bosses easier because you can dodge through attacks and reposition safely.

[BillButNotBen]

Boy Elite Dangerous makes a bad first impression!

The launcher is all messed up, with half the text cut off and the ad images cut off. Then I have to make an account to even launch it, but that involves opening my browser and filling in a web form that looks like it was made 10 years ago.

At least then it starts, and the tutorial seems pretty standard. Space station looks pretty. First thing I try to do is fly into the planet’s rings, but it won’t let me do that and forces me back to the tutorial area. Ok, fair enough.
Almost the first step of the tutorial is to fly through some rings, but the first one won’t register no matter how many times I fly through it.

Mouse controls seem a bit rubbish and I couldn’t be bothered to dig out my controller as it was getting late. So I called it a day at that point.
At least the space station interioe and the rings looked pretty.

[Det.Bullock]

The Flower is by far the hardest thing to do. It’s like having to do an insta kill boss fight for 10 minutes in respect to the level of concentration it requires f you and the complete absence of any grace period . If you can do that you can definitely do any of the other bosses : )

Not really, as long as you plan the route carefully it’s not difficult at all. The final room is the worst part with those ceiling thorns but that can be gotten through if you know how to position yourself for a couple of well-placed dashes. The second try went awry because I misremembered which room the grave was in so I went farther away then necessary, whoops.
In the end I did a round of Queen’s Gardens to find exactly where the grave was and after that it was smooth sailing.
It took me three/four tries total (including the first time when I got hit while still in Forgotten Crossroads) compared to the at least thirty or so it took me for the Traitor Lord and that with the “right” build.
The problem is that I have basically no reflexes and I perform really badly under pressure, when I finally beat the Traitor Lord I had one mask left and that with the combination on that doubled them up.

The problem with the bee is getting to it, by the time I finally reach it the little muscle memory I had built up is gone and it doesn’t help that the crowds of enemies are extremely difficult to avoid and dealing with them without running out of health takes time. I could probably use the dream nail like I did with the Traitor Lord but I burned to a lot of essence just for that fight so for now I’ll probably just try to get that last grub or do the tournament.

[Similar]

I started over (…), this time to try a mod with a new companion who is supposed to be a bit more fluid (fully voiced and everything too). Not very far yet, but it’s probably limited how much things can be improved.

This (https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/23273) is kind of nice. They certainly put a ton of work into it, and she has comments for a lot of locations, some interaction with other companions (she doesn’t count as one, so you can have her and a normal companion follow you).
Also has several quests, a home (that I think she actually returns to if you dismiss her, which is nice), can learn to hack master terminals, doesn’t use your body type (maybe a minor thing, but after seeing everybody and their mother have the same body, it’s kind of nice).
Doesn’t spend ammo and her power armor doesn’t get damaged (I’m a bit undecided on whether these are good things, but they certainly make management easier).
oh, and she has several settings for how close she follows you and for sneaking and such. I’m just using the default ones, but unlike the other companions, she isn’t trying to sit on my head all the time, and yet doesn’t lag so far behind that she can’t pitch in during fights.

She somehow doesn’t have quite the presence of the normal companions, but it’s certainly an impressive effort.

Anyway, 604 hours of Fallout 4 in a row, and I may be running out of things to do (or, things I want to do, at least). It is annoying that you kind of get railroaded into joining the … Railroad, or one of the other factions if you want to progress at all, but it’s not like I can’t understand why they did things this way, just wish I could do my own thing more.
So now I kind I to play Fallout 4 II or something, but I don’t think there’s anything really similar to it.