The "What Are You Playing Now?" Thread

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Originally Posted by Delores Mulva

Anyone playing Lost Ark? It seems like all the streamers are going nuts for it right now. I'm still playing MtG: Arena. New expansion came out this week, just waiting for the quick drafts with the new set's cards to build up my collection.

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Yup - loving it so far. Could have done without the clusterfuck of an update yesterday (FTP launch scheduled for the end of a hotfix). Hotfix maintenance planned for 4 hours downtime, didn't get back online for over 5 hours after that. The streamer I was watching (Cas on the Fextralife channel) stayed online through the entire fiasco.

It's like Diablo 3's bastard lovechild with vanilla WoW - ARPG perspective but with more variety and lots of endgame stuff.

Fallout 4, yet again with a restart, lol

love mods that make more creatures etc to fight, game's way too easy
Best was "war of the Commonwealth" because most of the groups of critters after a bit would go on "patrol" and roam, which made for awesome battles! :)
But it was buggy, bloated game files and nearly always crashed and stopped working, also, didn't add enemies indoors.

after testing out a few mons in the theme, I found this one "More enemies" works awesome ;)
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/m...ab=description
lacks the patrols, alas, but, does also work on indoor spawns (I have a screenie with about 40 raiders pile dup in Corvega, hehe, bouncing grenades around corners rules!)

and thus, omg...buhahaha! mayhem galore ! :evil: :evil: :evil:
gotta luv being killed by a swarm of about 60 ghouls at "Jamaica Plain", lol
was actually fun :p

screenie of the aftermath of another "ghoul-pocalypse"
them and insects you really need to napalm the FUCK out of, as the persistent flames chew away at them very effectively since most ghouls/bugs are low level
i.e. use Molotov cocktails (flamers are too slow/too small an area), or use an automatic weapon with the Exploding ability like "Spray N' Pray"
glowing bodies courtesy of mod that makes bodies and items glow so easier to find!

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I'm heading way out west.
https://i.imgur.com/zYtug8t.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/wHtkcm8.jpg

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Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

I'm heading way out west.

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How have you liked this so far?


I gave up on Code Vein. I didn't like it that much but was determined to push through it. Then I got sick and by the time I felt like playing something again it was ready to leave Game Pass so I didn't bother.

Similar level of disinterest in Yakuza. I got through 3, but only halfway through 4 before getting distracted by other things. I think part of the problem is me forcing myself to play something "before it leaves Game Pass" rather than play what I actually feel like playing in that moment.

I have been enjoying it and while the end has a bit of a twist they are well setup for a third game and a DLC.
https://i.imgur.com/Mrq6FIr.png

https://i.imgur.com/84Rmvfe.jpg

I'm massively enjoying my time in the world of Night City. Cyberpunk 2077 is just amazing.

First playthrough:
- Male V, normal difficulty
- 128 hours, did all quests I could
- Netrunner Int/Cool/Tech build
- Did all achievements except one
- Got all endings except the hidden one

Second playthrough
- Female V, very hard difficulty (the bodacious babe in the screenie)
- 50+ hours so far, not yet finished
- Shotgunner Body/Cool/Tech build

I am sooooo in love with this game.

I finally made time for Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I was kind of disappointed in the story, especially with how much people talked it up, but I thought the gameplay was great fun.

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Originally Posted by JungleHeart

I'm massively enjoying my time in the world of Night City. Cyberpunk 2077 is just amazing.

I am sooooo in love with this game.

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Are you playing on console or PC?

What happened to this game is kind of tragic. Everyone who still cares seems to think this is a good game now but it (and CD Projekt Red) may never live down the stigma they earned by releasing the console versions in the state they did.

I completed the primary story (gasp!) of Lego Star Wars Skywalker Saga. I'm not sure I'll go hog-wild and collect all the collectibles (characters/ships/miniships/bricks) but I'll probably put a few more hours into it.

Other than Pokemon Go (and even that only a few minutes a day) I've not been playing much. Been reading more.

Resubbed to PS+ again for a month now that it has has a Game Pass style library now. Which means I was finally able to play that cheap copy of Anthem I bought.

It's better than I thought it was going to be with how much everyone hated on it. It feels good to play and the flying/combat is fun. Nearly every bad thing about it ties directly into the always online live service stuff.

The most notable thing I played from the PS+ catalogue is Death Stranding. Another game I thought I would not like because of how divisive it was but I've been having a good time. It's fairly relaxing and has an interesting sense of progression. Kind of awkward to play now though, as a major component of the game involved online interactions and not many people are playing it now.

I'm having a ball with DEATHLOOP! Very cool game!

Has anyone here played Scorn? What are your impressions? All I can say is that I'm glad this game is over.

Deathloop was really fun. Playing God of War now that it's available on PC / Steam.

I bought a PS5 for my boys for christmas back in September.
I have been playing a couple games the past week, and I am not at all the gamer that I used to be.

The only games I really enjoy anymore are the red dead series, the grand theft auto series, and general racing games, and games adjacent to it.

I'm getting too slow and old to play FPS games.

I bought "WRC 9" which is a competitor of the dirt series, and HOLY CRAP, that dual sense controller with the variable resistance in the triggers is just NUTS.

I am having a BLAST playing that game on the controller.

I have a force feedback steering wheel rig in the garage, but I am probably going to bring it inside, as I am so impressed by the upscale graphics using HDR on the television in the den with the PS5.

A truly amazing game to play if you are into the more realistic simulator racing games.

I'm curious about Prey, if anyone has played it and whether it was good or not. I know it's not a new game, but I read an article about it that said those who like DOOM would really enjoy it. So before I spend $30 on it I am hoping to get some feedback. Thanks.

I really enjoyed Prey. It's kind of unique and honestly hard to explain how it's unique lol. It's also genuinely kind of scary at times. I think there were a few times I got.... quite startled heheh. I had fun with it though. Pretty sure I played at least one or two NG+ campaigns.

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Originally Posted by Bonlainy

I'm curious about Prey, if anyone has played it and whether it was good or not. I know it's not a new game, but I read an article about it that said those who like DOOM would really enjoy it. So before I spend $30 on it I am hoping to get some feedback. Thanks.

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I haven't played Prey, but I have it on my Steam wishlist. Currently it's sitting at 90% positive ratings, and I have previously seen good reviews of it.
I was also pretty intrigued by some great reviews of the Mooncrash expansion. That actually sounded more interesting than the base game.

It's a game, and expansion, that's been on sale several times, so maybe check around to see if you can't find it with a good discount. You can maybe use https://www.cheapshark.com/, if you haven't already checked there.

Also if you play it, let us know how you like it :-)

EDIT: Check this review of Mooncrash that got me a bit hyped about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuIgx0fD4Es

Prey is good. I only had a few quibbles and they were minor enough that I no longer remember what they are. I felt like it was more like Bioshock or Deus Ex though. A lot of exploring, hacking things, and unlocking powers. You sneak around and get surprised by enemies rather than run around and get swarmed by them. I never played the Mooncrash DLC but heard good things.

There was a much older prey that did play like a typical shooter, it's not available anymore though. I did not like that one.

P.S. I would like to second the notion to keep an eye on prices. It goes on sale a lot.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll definitely watch for a price break before I make the plunge.

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Originally Posted by Milton Finkelstein

I haven't played Prey, but I have it on my Steam wishlist. Currently it's sitting at 90% positive ratings, and I have previously seen good reviews of it.
I was also pretty intrigued by some great reviews of the Mooncrash expansion. That actually sounded more interesting than the base game.

It's a game, and expansion, that's been on sale several times, so maybe check around to see if you can't find it with a good discount. You can maybe use https://www.cheapshark.com/, if you haven't already checked there.

Also if you play it, let us know how you like it :-)

EDIT: Check this review of Mooncrash that got me a bit hyped about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuIgx0fD4Es

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Thanks to your link I found it for $7.62 on GamersGate. Started playing some today and am really enjoying it, definitely makes you earn most of your progress.

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Originally Posted by Bonlainy

Thanks to your link I found it for $7.62 on GamersGate. Started playing some today and am really enjoying it, definitely makes you earn most of your progress.

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Nice - Glad you found a discount and are enjoying it :-)

Playing Last of Us Part 1 on Steam now. There have been lots of horrible, horrible reviews. And honestly, it did take my rig about an hour and 15 minutes to initially build shaders. But gameplay itself is going pretty smoothly so far.

I heard about that and was kind of surprised. I thought Sony had been doing well on the PC ports so far. Maybe the strict deadline of coinciding with the HBO show hurt more than it helped.

There might be some confirmation bias here, but it sort of seems to me like troubled PC ports are becoming more common in general lately. It seems like every other game has some sort of stability issue that consoles didn't have. I have at least one diehard PC friend that finally just got a PS5 rather than deal with it (although FF16 didn't hurt).


P.S. Been playing Rogue Legacy 2 a lot recently, it's very good. I've also been playing a lot of rentals lately. At first I did it just to try a few things I wasn't sure about, but I keep forgetting to unsubscribe so I've gone through a lot by this point. Bayonetta 2+3, Hitman 3, Judgement, etc.

I dunno; could be true. I haven't had that experience though. I just finished about three 100% campaigns of God of War on PC with absolutely zero issues. Last of Us is playing flawlessly. And before that, Red Dead Redemption 2 rocked.

*shrugs*

Now its off to LA, looking a bit worse for wear and I guess she wont be recording that hit album any time soon.
https://i.imgur.com/IXXd4fl.jpg

I'm playing the third and final Dishonored game and enjoying. I picked it up on Steam for $5.99 lol.

Finished Rogue Legacy but washed out on all the New Game + stuff. Mostly because I got an urge to play some Civilization and got a little obsessed. I finally tore myself away to make use of my Game Pass sub and tried Humankind a bit. It's a 4X game like Civ, except each era you pick a different Culture with its own bonuses instead of once at the beginning. It's pretty neat but I'm not sure it's balanced. Once I figured out how to play (a bit tough) I started snowballing pretty hard.

I spent this past month playing all the mainline Metroid games for the first time, from the NES to the Switch, and had a great time. Super Metroid was the only that really impressed me, but it was cool to see how the series evolved.

These games are really short so I played a bunch of stuff on Game Pass too, but the Metroid playthough was the one interesting enough to post about.

Hearthstone. It had been nine expansions since I'd played, I'd been doing the Twitch Drops thing whenever I saw it pop up, so figured I'd see how much was sitting there. I was up to close to 150 packs, had a pile of gold and dust sitting around too. Turns out they added a PvE content item (Mercenaries) and achievements since I'd last played. I'm planning to keep at it until I'm done with the story questline for Mercenaries, doing the quests for other content as they pop up and re-rolling anything that requires winning. The other game modes (battlegrounds, constructed) are still as bad as I remember them being, so "just here until I'm done with PvE stuff" should not be a hard promise to keep.

I know this is pretty old school, but I am replaying HOMM V and its expansions. I saw it on GOG recently for almost nothing and decided to give it a go again. I'm definitely enjoying it, I always loved the strategy and turn based nature. The graphics are obviously not great but they aren't that bad for an almost 20-year-old game.

I'm also going to be getting the new Baldur's Gate soon as well, I loved the original ones, and the good things I am reading here and other places has me excited to try it.

I remember playing HOMM V a long time ago and enjoyed it. Although I think the main game was just way too long, as each faction had a campaign long enough to be it's own game. I really liked the orc expansion though. It was a good length and was more interesting than the base game, I thought.

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Originally Posted by Delores Mulva

Hearthstone. It had been nine expansions since I'd played, I'd been doing the Twitch Drops thing whenever I saw it pop up, so figured I'd see how much was sitting there.

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I've probably said this before, but Hearthstone is one of those games I really like but also pretend doesn't exist. I had to uninstall it so it would stop hurting me.

This month I've been playing something in the same vein, except it's so small and lightweight that uninstalling it is ineffective. It's only ever a 30 minute download away. FTL. Every couple of years I tend to get the urge to boot it up, fail horribly, then get annoyed and put it away again. I stuck with it this time and have won several times, but man it hurts.

I've also been playing Triangle Strategy on my Switch. Very good game.

Been awhile since I bumped this thread. I think I've mentioned elsewhere that I spent several months playing Tears of the Kingdom. Had a great time.

I also recently finally played Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. That game isn't half as silly as the weird trailers would have you believe. The story is still sort of okay, but I was more impressed with just how much I liked the gameplay. I shouldn't have doubted them as it was the same studio that made Nioh, but people were so mixed about the game that I didn't think I would like it. It was very good.

Basic synopsis: it's an action game with a Final Fantasy job (class) system. You can have two equipped at any one time and switch between them like you would a gear set in other action rpgs. It's got a lot of classic FF jobs like black mage, dragoon, etc. Story ties into the first Final Fantasy, but it's also sort of it's own weird thing.

I finally kinda ran out of stuff to do in Starfield. Not sure how many thousands of hours I've got into it lol. I was trying to stay occupied until the DLC dropped but I haven't seen any evidence it will be any time before fall.

So I played The Outer Worlds. -Pretty fun game but kinda simple and short. The graphics are a little cartoon-ish for my taste but not horribly. I LOVED getting 10 points to spend every level, and a perk to spend every other level. Overall I enjoyed it. I wasn't really sure what to get into next though. Dragon's Dogma II looked interesting to me, but I heard it only has 2 save file slots that really turned me off. (Completionist, min/maxer, etc) I also heard less than stellar reports of the PC optimization. But I couldn't find anything else that interested me so I went ahead and pulled the trigger on it.

I do not regret it in the least. The graphics are spectacular. I would compare it to Witcher 3 and RDR2. I have not experienced any crashes or glitches. Combat is pretty cool. I find myself resting at Inns and quick saving frequently to get around the 2 saves issue. It is a very complicated game IMHO. But interestingly so.

Just as an example, it's recommended you run with a group of 4 in this single player game, so you recruit 3 "pawns" that are AI helpers. But one of the pawns you create and customize and this one stays with you throughout the game. The other two pawns do not level while with you, so you need to keep dismissing them and recruiting two others as you level up. Not only that, but also you can recruit kind of static pawns or player made pawns and those you can receive rewards and rate them lol. You can also recruit pawns higher than your current level for help with difficult encounters, but these cost in game currency. And that's just pawns lol.

The only kinda weird thing to me, is how the game is so complicated yet leveling is totally simplified. You get no points or anything to spend on abilities. On a level up it is just a static upgrade to your stats.

Of course there is an alternate leveling system for your vocation (fighter, mage, archer, thief that can be changed anytime back and forth). You earn discipline XP points for those that you can spend on improved abilities, so... there's that lol.

All in all I'd recommend it, despite being very early on. It's kinda cool because there is hardly any online guides, or walk-throughs, or tips for this yet because it's so new. Folks are saying people are still too busy playing the game to write up guides lol. So, flying blind but enjoying!

I would argue that the limited save slots is integral to the way the flow of the game works for the same reason why fast travel is so limited. It's probably also necessary for the pawn system to work.

Similarly, I would caution you to not get hung up on completionism with quests either. If it's anything like the first game, npc quest arcs coincide with the main story progression and will fail/advance on their own if you don't complete them in time. That's assuming you even find them. You aren't expected to do them all in one playthrough.

What sucks though is only ever being able to have one character. While you can always just change classes at any time, doing so on a fresh character feels very different than doing so on an already beefy character. I got around this limitation by buying the original on multiple platforms. Not doing that with a $70 game though!


Incidentally that's what I've been playing these past two months since I don't have anything powerful enough to run the sequel. I already had it on PS4 but got it on Switch and PC too so I could try different kinds of characters. The game isn't very long but I had never played the expansion content before so am only halfway through overall.

Wool, good news in your quest to not play Hearthstone. They just tripled the requirements of the weekly quests, but only increased the rewards by 20-30%. Between that and the current metagame (many decks are "kill everything that hits the board until my unstoppable OTK is drawn"), people are heading out the door in droves. Guess this won't increase "engagement" like they wanted!

It's funny that you say that, as a month or so ago I almost started playing again, having forgotten why I (apparently?) hate that game so much. I was messing around with Warcraft Rumble* and as these things tend to do it made me want to play more Warcraft stuff. "I bet I still have Hearthstone installed," I think. But I kept getting an error and couldn't get it to run, so I uninstalled it for real and haven't bothered to try it again since. Phew, that was a close one!


*It's just as trashy as any other mobile game by the way. I tried it anyway because I like Warcraft and the in-game models are cute, but blech at this game balancing designed to leech a constant stream of microtransactions from players. It's gross. I will say the interface is better than most, however, and I like the way you can customize and upgrade your armies. Too bad it takes weeks of grinding to upgrade a single unit unless you want to pay up though. Just gross.

I'm in ng+ Dragons Dogma II and loving it. I may go ng2 before settling with the intended ending. But I JUST learned the most awesome news! God of War Ragnarok is coming to PC!!! In September!!! Can't wait!!!

<3:banana:

https://blog.playstation.com/2024/05...-coming-to-pc/

I've finally had my fill of Dragon's Dogma myself (the first game). I've been trying to motivate myself into playing Eiyuden Chronicle from a couple months ago, but I've mostly been messing around with smaller games. Finally got around to trying Pentiment, it was pretty neat.

What's been your favorite vocation/class from Dragon's Dogma so far?

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Originally Posted by Wool

What's been your favorite vocation/class from Dragon's Dogma so far?

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I'm pretty hooked on Magick Archer. -Which is actually pretty different from classes I typically play.

But what I actually do is play Warfarer, which is kinda OP. You can wear any class armor you wish. You earn xp in every vocation simultaneously. But the best part (or most OP part? lol) is I can run around as a magick archer spec, but when needed can swap out for a mage staff for heals or levitate lol. Pretty cool.

The secret endgame, the Unmoored world is spectacular. Dragons, Minotaurs, Chimeras, Griffons, etc combat is really, really impressive.

Something for former WoW players who may want to scratch an itch: right now there's an event on, Remix: Mists of Pandaria. It lasts for about 80 more days, and is a completely contained 10-70 experience. You make a character, it starts at 10, and you level through MoP and only MoP. Details:

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com...ts-of-pandaria

The TL;DR on why I mention this: trial accounts can do this, up until level 20. Any old account with no game time on it counts as a trial account. The rewards you can buy off vendors in this thing include every toy that drops somewhere in MoP (including the ultra-rare one off the snails in Throne of Thunder) and 40-odd mounts. The mounts are both new mounts (almost all recolours) and mounts that drop off MoP mobs. Huolon mount? The star-filled dragon mount? Yup, all available. And you will likely be able to buy at least any one thing you want. At level 20, the daily scenario quest alone gives 500 Bronze (the event currency), and the cheapest mounts are 2200 bronze, with the most expensive being 38500 bronze. Any stuff you buy in the event stays with your account, even if you're just doing it as a trial.

Because of how scaling works and how you continue to gain stats beyond just gear stats, those level 20 capped characters can become stupidly powerful. I was in a scenario with one guy who was one-shotting entire packs, without taking any noticeable damage, and running at close to mount speed (run speed is one of the stats you can boost). It's intended that, by the end of the event, players will be soloing raids. A 20 won't be doing that - the first raid opens up at 25 - but there's five dungeons you can do at 20, and eight scenarios, and three of the MoP zones. You even keep the character after the event, with reasonable gear given to it to replace the event-only gear. I'm using how quickly you level in this to get all the allied races to 70 for the "level an allied race to 50" achievements (confirmed by devs that this counts and will trigger the achievement once they move to Live at event end).

Currently really enjoying Diablo 4, aside form couple of anoying things it's a great game :)

I mentioned in some thread or another that I finally got a PS5. God of War: Ragnarok was the first game I played on it. I played it for most of last month and had a blast, very happy with the experience overall. It was much longer than I was expecting though, which made the weirdly rushed ending stand out all the more. I seem to recall a lot of people hating on this game, and I wonder if the final portion of the game is why. Part of me wonders if the recently canceled live-service God of War project was responsible for them trying to condense the story of two games into one.

I have a lot to catch up on and plan on playing at least one game a month, so might be bumping this thread a lot this year. I've got to say though, I was so caught up in fussing over games costing $70 now that I overlooked the real concern. Game install sizes are huge now. My puny internet can't handle these 150 gig games, so I'm glad I got a PS5 with a disc drive.

Heh, I loved both God of War games that made it to PC. -Stellar graphics, great story, fun combat... My only complaint is it is a bit of a button masher game. I can never remember all the combinations for special attacks and end up only using a handful lol. With a max level of only ten, they manage to squash in lots of ability, armor, and weapon upgrades to make it really engaging.

I'm nearly at the end of Dragon Age: The Veilguard which I'm enjoying quite a bit. It relies alot on using specific combos with your companions depending on the mob's strengths and weaknesses, which is cool. The most hilarious thing to me is that I understand it received alot of hate for being "woke" but there is literally one minor character that is non-binary with a backstory that you can totally glaze over or ignore if you wish; it just blows my mind. But whatever. Fun game!

Holy shit man. I just finished Last of Us 2. Wow, that was really intense. -Definitely hits ya in the feels.

I was not very happy with that last third of the game, and for once kind of agreed with the online outrage about it (I never knew about it until I reached that part in the game, heh).

But that ending fight scene is SO intense, it kind of relieved me of any lasting anger about it. So much so, I'd play it again now actually. But not anytime soon... I need an emotional rest after that lol.

Yeah, that game is rough. I've replayed the first game but I don't know when or if I will ever want to replay 2. It's a great game, but its also kind of a miserable thing to experience. It's kind of crazy to make such a good game and then have the story try to make you feel bad for playing it.

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Originally Posted by Nerkahia

I was not very happy with that last third of the game, and for once kind of agreed with the online outrage about it (I never knew about it until I reached that part in the game, heh).

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I'm not familiar with this. The outrage for the, um, other parts of the game was so intense that I sort of stopped paying attention to what people were saying after awhile.

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Originally Posted by Wool

I'm not familiar with this. The outrage for the, um, other parts of the game was so intense that I sort of stopped paying attention to what people were saying after awhile.

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Spoiler for I'm talking about::

All the outrage posted about being forced to play as Abby. I saw multiple people saying they immediately quit the game, un-installed the game and sold it lol. I wasn't quite THAT outraged, but I was definitely pissed about having to play the character that tortured and killed my favorite player! When I first encountered it in game I was praying it wouldn't be very long, so Google'd it and found all the online hate threads lol.

As for myself, I only just started my goal of playing one PS5 game I missed a month and have already almost derailed it.


First, February. I was pretty busy and kept putting off starting something new, but did manage to sneak in Spider Man: Miles Morales in the last week of the month. It's basically more of an already good thing. The thing I was most surprised about in this was just how much I liked the enhanced visuals. I had played God of War in high framerate mode but kept the visuals on for Spider Man. I felt like all the extra visual clutter made the city feel more like a city and less like a big empty video game level.


Next, March. This is where I went wrong. Instead of playing one of the old games I had already purchased, I picked up the newest Monster Hunter, Wilds. I have friends that play these games and thought I might join them. They beat it over the launch weekend before my copy even arrived and then got bored with the end game and quit. I meanwhile took two weeks to get through it. :D

Still a great game solo though. I hadn't played one of these since Generations on the 3DS and was really impressed with the improvements starting since World, and the raptor bird mount things are so useful I'm not sure I can go back.


Anyway, I beat it in March and broke my one game a month rule by continuing to play it in April. This is one of those "the real game starts now" games, and I was going to finish the high rank post game stuff, but got distracted by a few games that I wanted to try before they left the PS+ service. (Animal Well - very good, Kena: Bridge of Spirits - good, The Plucky Squire - okay)

I still want to finish what I started and tell myself I can play it casually on the side after moving on to other games, but I know in practice that's never how it works out with me. I've already begun to forget how to play it and really do want to play some of these other games I bought. :p

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Originally Posted by Nerkahia

spoiler=I'm talking about:

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Oh, I see. There was an extra section at the end that I thought was kind of awkward at the time, like I couldn't believe it was still going, and thought you might mean that.

As for what you actually meant.

Spoiler for spoilers:

I honestly didn't mind that part so much. In fact, I think I preferred it. Abby sucks for what she did (or more specifically, how she did it) but her sections of the game were fun and interesting without having all the baggage that Ellie's sections did.

I've been doing a pretty poor job of making time for my PS5 game catch up list. I've only made time for two: Forspoken and Jedi Survivor.

Jedi Survivor I liked, despite the performance problems it had. I don't think I have anything particularly positive or negative to say about it. Just an all around good time.

Forspoken I did not like. I was surprised by this, as I often find that the hate certain games get online is overblown, with some small kernel of enjoyment still being possible. The thing is, while most people get caught up in criticizing the bad writing (and it is bad), the things they say are good about this game are also actually bad. Both combat and traversal are all flash and no substance, offering nothing I haven't already experienced from better games.


Aside from this I've mostly just been playing small time wasting PC games like Rimworld and Monster Train. The latter is a deck builder roguelike like Slay the Spire with the gimmick being that you deploy on three different floors and the enemies advance through them each round of combat. I finally pulled myself away from those and have been going back to the old Far Cry games that I skipped. I wasn't impressed by 3 but 4 is pretty decent so far.

Oh right, I also started Fire Emblem Fates because it's been hot and I wanted something I could play with maximum laziness (lying down). It's not good, but I enjoy the strategy rpg foundation anyway so haven't minded much.

I've been playing Dune Awakening.
It's a odd game. Its marketed as a Survival MMO, but it really is a single player game almost more akin to older games like Knights of the Old Republic and such, blended of course with some base building and resource gathering.
Still, I would rate it a 7 or 8 maybe, especially of course if you're a fan of the Dune universe. Just don't expect much survival or MMO. :-)

I picked up Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon during the Steam sale and am enjoying it quite a bit. It sounds like it had a bit of a rough release but it seems pretty good now.

Ghost of Yotei seemed to be getting alot of hype on my feed. It's not available on PC yet so I decided to give Ghost of Tsushima a whirl and having alot of fun with it!

I would guess the hype is because big studio exclusives have become few and far between lately. I don't think it had the same impact that Tsushima did, with its best new feature being expanded combat.

I still haven't played either myself. I've been wanting to start Tsushima, but I've been knee-deep in the morass that is Death Stranding 2 for months. I made the mistake of doing all the optional deliveries alongside the main narrative, which was a terrible mistake. I did finally beat it this last week, but the optional content absolutely killed the story pacing. I have mixed feelings on it overall, but it was still a very good game.


I had been playing it for the past two or three months and with no end in sight I would occasionally take a break and play shorter small-scale games on the side. The most recent was Blue Prince. I immediately became obsessed with it, with my initial assessment being that it was one of the best puzzle games ever made.

It's basically a roguelike puzzle/exploration game. You are exploring an old manor and each time you enter a room you draw from three blueprints (get it?) outlining different room types, and each will have their own bonuses or secrets. You might choose between a hallway, a kitchen, or a game room. The hallway will have multiple doors, allowing you more rooms to explore without hitting dead ends. The kitchen would give you food, giving you more energy to explore before the day ended. The game room might give you keys or currency used to buy things or afford fancier rooms.

The ultimate goal(s) being to reach a hidden secret room in the manor that isn't on any official floorplans, with each room having different secrets and riddles to discover. It is incredibly satisfying. The shine did eventually wear off though, long after I beat it when I began trying to pierce together the game's deeper mysteries. The story/lore is more elaborate than you might initially think, and it's all very good, but the puzzles start to get pretty freaking ridiculous and I'm sort of burning out.

Still, the praise last year was definitely deserved.

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Originally Posted by Nerkahia

I picked up Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon during the Steam sale and am enjoying it quite a bit. It sounds like it had a bit of a rough release but it seems pretty good now.

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I forgot to reply to this when you posted this, but I did want to say that prior to this post I would see this game and ignore it, assuming I already knew what it was. Some years ago there was a Tainted Grail game called Conquest that was one of those deck builder things.

I had no idea they also made an open world rpg thing. It looks pretty cool, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. Even if there is virtually no chance I'll ever make time to play it. :p

If you liked Valheim, or any open world survival/builder/explorer game, then I'd recommend Windrose. It's in early access still, but it's already a pretty great game, especially on a private server with friends.
It seems Windrose integrated most of the great features of like-minded games, while also dumping the tedious things that survival games often have. No durability on items, forgiving death mechanics, great in-game knowledge/recipe sharing amongst friends and things to team-work on.
Plus it looks pretty great as it is already, even though they continue to improve the visuals in patches.

This is some kind of open world pirate game right? I've got a friend that keeps bringing it up, and I've seen it mentioned a few times elsewhere, but I've otherwise seen and heard very little about this game. Which is weird, because Steam suggests this is a massively hyped game. I feel like I should see more people talking about this. I don't know if I should blame "the algorithm" or my own unconscious bias.

Yea, it's a Pirate themed game. Open, persistent world, very much like Valheim, but with Pirates instead of Vikings.
I'd really recommend it, and if you have any specific questions, just shoot and I'll try and answer.