The "What Are You Playing Now?" Thread

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Originally Posted by Wool

I don't think this is exactly true. What you are describing comes from human nature always trying to min/max any challenge until it boils down to a path of least resistance, especially in a competitive context. It's going to happen in every game, regardless of genre.

At the very most basic level, strategy is very important, all other things being equal (balance). You need to be aware what your enemy is doing, and you need to know what the proper counter to it is. In battle, you need to know how to organize your units efficiently, and you need to be able to make decisions about your economy to not fall behind.

Regardless, these problems are only apparent if you play competitively. I like the genre vs AI because I like managing armies and poking holes in defenses.

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It isn't strategy where both would play the first 90% of any game identically without fog of war, every single time. When the meaningful metric is APM, you're an action game.

Yeah, I actually kind of like playing it in Single Player, unfortunately most new RTS games have a lot of weird support for that now. The way you play them isn't really a "vs AI" setup so much as playing through a pre-configured script for each level.

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Originally Posted by Wool

I'm going to say no. I don't think his ultimate plan was to ruin his career and company so that in twenty years someone would play a bad game and wish they hadn't.

That ad campaign was such a disaster. Can you imagine if someone tried it today? You would have to move to the moon to get away from the disdain you would earn.

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Hah, it didn't even do that well back then. It was both tone deaf and ignorant of the fact that in general people don't know who the fuck make the things they enjoy. They can tell you about stars in them, but they probably can't tell you who directed most movies unless the media makes a huge deal out of the director first.

I used to really enjoy RTS until I encountered some of the elite level players so to speak. Mass spamming hotkeys and quickly organizing and pushing things around isn't really any fun. May as well be a dot matrix game for as much as they pay attention to all the minutia. Makes my shoulders ache thinking of it.

I played Dark Souls last month, which I talked about in the thread Goladus made for it. I then started playing a PSP game on my Vita called Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time. It took me longer than I expected so I'm going to briefly talk about it.

This is part of my quest to beat all my old Playstation games that I never made time for, although this one was a new addition. During some PSN sale or another last year, I was reading a thread about the various deals and people kept raving about this game I had never really heard of before. The graphics were ugly, and it was one of those games that went completely ignored when it came out, but they kept insisting the story was good so I picked it up ($5).

It ended up being a lot better than I was expecting. The story was good, but not great. It attempted to do some interesting things but seems a little over ambitious for what it actually accomplishes. It also felt unfinished near the end, but that's probably due to the fact that I played it on the original PS2 story route. The PSP version got additional content that you can unlock by making certain choices in the game. The combat system was a kind of real time strategy rpg. It was interesting.

The thing I liked the most about the game was the character art. It used an art style that I find incredibly nostalgic, though it also threatened my assertion that games and anime years ago weren't so dependent on pandering and fan service as they are now. This is still true, but there certainly is a lot of it in this game. Luckily despite being fairly blatant, it doesn't feel quite as gross or hyper-charged as the stuff now. I'm not sure if this is just a perception thing or what.



I've been talking about this backlog in this thread for what seems like two years. I beat the PS2 games, the PS3 games, and only have three PSP games to go. Of course, my Vita also has about 10-12 PS1 games on it, but let's not think about that quite yet...

Next I'll be playing Ryse: Son of Rome (?), which I saw on Steam for $5 the other day, before getting back to the PSP stuff.

Ryse was great if all you care is about a spectacle, as the visuals were pretty amazing, but it wasn't very fun to play. I remember it getting a lot of crap when it came out, but it seems fine as far as typical console launch games go. The story was almost interesting but didn't really come together for me. I remember not thinking I would care about the historical inaccuracies that others complained about, but in effect I agree they were strange and pretty jarring.

Friend of mine sent me an Early Access copy of 7 Days to Die, after trying to get me to pick it up myself for a couple of weeks, so it's practically the only thing I've played this month. It's basically Zombie Minecraft. I hated it at first, and have great difficulty playing online with friends, so largely ignored it until one of their bases got wrecked by a swarm. They were also new and expressed great frustration in not being able to keep up with the others, so I spent a day just fixing their perimeter for them. My skills got high enough that I decided to then make my own base. A couple days later I regretted the amount of time and work it was taking, and then my computer started crashing, so hurray for that.


Also messing around in Final Fantasy 5. Every year there is this "Fiesta" event on the internet where you get assigned random jobs from the game and have to complete it using only those jobs. I've never played it before but enough people I know do this that I decided to try it myself.

I realized I haven't posted here in a while. Partly because I didn't play much in each individual month, but looking back there is a lot I didn't mention. I did finish all my backlogged PSP games, as I had kept mentioning. I never decided what part of the backlog to tackle next, and so have only been playing new things.

Darkest Dungeon I talked about in the recommend a PC game thread, when it came out. I finally played it, and it was almost exactly what I wanted it to be. Dark and brooding and stressful. It was very, very good at what it set out to do. But. But, the last stretch of the game became kind of a tedious slog. This is a game with permadeath but with upgrades in your town that make it relatively easy to continue forward momentum. The difficulty spikes at the end, as well as the time sink involved in training up new characters and getting enough gold to equip them, was incredibly unfun and nearly ruined the game for me.

Still good, but I'm not looking to marry a damn video game, thanks. It's the same reason why I stopped playing Monster Hunter halfway through, and don't really play MMOs anymore. I guess I didn't mention that either. I picked it up after mentioning it in a release thread. Controls take getting used to, but the base combat is interesting and some of the monsters are pretty cool. I didn't mind the repetition or the farming/grinding too much, until you get to high rank. Once I realized I would have to fight the same 30 minute encounter 30 times to finish an armor set I lost all interest. There are too many other worthwhile things to play.


Moving on, after Darkest Dungeon I wanted something casual. Luckily my last remaining Steam Sale game was Stardew Valley, a Harvest Moon clone. It's a pretty good one. It isn't exactly balanced perfectly, but neither are the Harvest Moon games. Not much to say regarding this, except that I think I finally figured out why I have so much trouble finishing these games. I love the first dozen hours, then tend to lose interest. It's because after the first year, you very quickly run out of long-term goals. Get a big house, get married, and then all that's left to do is make as much money as possible. Which gets pretty old.

Stardew Valley had the benefit of having a subquest to restore a community center, but aside from one annoyingly rare item, wasn't that hard to do. Edit: Oh right, for anyone not aware, Harvest Moon is an isometric farming sim with jrpg level npc interaction, though the npcs do have schedules that change based on the day of the week.


Oh right. I also played Banner Saga 2. Which was what you would expect it to be, more Banner Saga. Which is also exactly what you want it to be. Now I'm waiting and looking forward to the things I want to pick up before or during the next Steam Sale.

I just played a few rounds of Insurgency. The latest update is just amazing.

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Darkest Dungeon I talked about in the recommend a PC game thread

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This was the only game on my steam wishlist. It went on sale right before Christmas but I decided not to buy it, still have other games in the queue.

So currently playing FFX. It's OK although it hasn't sucked me in yet. The opening cinematic was striking and the first few combat sequences were easy and fun. But I didn't enjoy so much spending the next hour lost and disoriented. I mean, I do appreciate that it's on purpose to make the player feel like a fish out of water because that's what Tidus is going through. But I have to say that is a somewhat odd way to introduce a player to your game. Especially since, unless I missed something, there's no inn, healing spring, or anything like it until you reach Besaid village (which for me was 2 hours in). Again, great to really emphasize the feeling of being stranded in an unfamiliar world with no food or place to rest, but a rather unwelcoming way to introduce a player to the world.

For all I've heard about the bad voice acting, it's not really bothering me so far. Yeah Tidus is a bit of a turd, but he's cheeful and optimistic enough to be endearing. I kinda like Tidus in spite of myself (at least so far). I also like Wakka. If I had a criticism, it's that awkward silences between lines often disrupts the flow of conversation. It feels like technical issues related to editing, as if each line is an individual recording that needs to be cued at the right moment and the cues aren't always aligned properly. Though overall I think I'd just prefer there to be less voiced dialog for the sake of pacing, it's not driving me crazy or anything. Also, I haven't liked any of the dreams/flashbacks so far but we'll see where that goes.

The fixed, pre-planned camera angles that change automatically depending on where you are on the screen was a bit disconcerting at first. But once used to it, this method definitely facilities very FF-like movement patterns. Sometimes it's a bit hard to tell where boundaries are, and invisible boundaries just get thrown up to funnel you into going one specific place. But walking around feels like classic Final Fantasy despite the fully 3D environments.

Not sure what I think of the Sphere Grid. Initial impression is decidedly mixed, so I'm just going to keep playing and see where it goes.

I went and picked up a cheap tablet game called Dungeons of Chaos. It's a throwback to 2d dungeon CRPG games like Ultima I suppose. It's not fully polished, but it does seem reasonably well-balanced so far. You take your group somewhere it doesn't belong at your level and your group splats. You go easy mode against peons and your casters are OOM when they need it against the tough encounters.

A few grumbles though.
First, the overworld can feel practically bereft of encounters. If you go to spots near dungeons you can farm there, but just roaming from one part of the map to another your chances of hitting a random encounter are pretty low.
At first I didn't understand the spell leveling system. Now I have a better feel, although I practically stumbled across it.
It'd be GREAT if I could work the map based on tablet touches instead of having to use the hokey arrow keys to scroll around.
Lastly, you get these conversational keywords that NEVER GO AWAY. I don't want to ask this NPC about some quest keyword from a quest I completed days ago, and eventually you end up with more keywords than will fit on a screen easily.

My group's level 5-6 right now and they just got PULVERIZED by a monster encounter because I have no resist magic gear. I'll need to spend time gearing up to get that fixed. So far it's definitely worth the $3.99, despite the grumbles.

After finishing Persona 5 I took a break from jrpgs, which make up the majority of my backlog. I've still got 3 or 4 unfinished PC games to choose from, and went with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. I think I was drawn to it because the class system reminds me of Andromeda. Being able to mix and match abilities and then having a profile with unique bonuses.

Anyway, I'm probably the last person to have played it at this point. I feel like the core of the game is fairly solid, but it's ultimately not very satisfying. It's also a big lesson in how sometimes less is more. I remember reading countless suggestions to just skip all the sidequests and for some reason I decided I wanted to do them anyway. This was a terrible, terrible decision, and for awhile my stubbornness wouldn't let me stop what I had started. If by some chance someone reading this has not played this game yet but intends to, do not make this same mistake! This game doesn't have the depth to be entertaining for that long. I even eventually found the faction quests (the better of the sidequests) to be kind of abominable.


I liked the combat but even with constantly respeccing it gets pretty old. The balance of the game in general is way off. Fully specced warrior and you are unkillable, but the constant combat becomes plodding. Fully specced mage and you walk into a room, push a button, and then everything dies. Also boring.

For me, I've found the only to have fun is to spec at least partially into rogue and concentrate on weapon skills. You are squishy enough that you have to pay attention to what you are doing, but the constant crits means things don't take forever to kill. Though, I've also broken this build now by crafting some armor instead of using dropped stuff. I'm now both unkillable and everything dies in two hits. Oh well.


The main story seems interesting, but most of the rest of the plot is not. The writing in general didn't bother me too much, but there are a few instances in which I wanted to tear my hair out. I'm not too keen on the world itself either.

I haven't bumped this thread in awhile. Other than the stuff I've mentioned in each monthly release thread, I've mostly been working on my backlog of old handheld games. I've probably mentioned it before, but I basically told myself I wasn't allowed to get a Switch until I had done so. I also didn't buy much this year, and had one period where my computer was down (hard drive failure), so didn't have many alternatives. :p

I've finished all my DS games, all but one Vita game (Persona 4), and all but two 3DS games (Persona Q, SMT4).


A few of the standouts worth mentioning:

Chrono Trigger - I didn't have a SNES so didn't play this when it originally came out. It holds up really well. This is still a great game.

Kingdom Hearts 3D - It was better than I thought it would be, but the story continues to get stupider and stupider. I did like the The World Ends With You stuff though.

Atelier Rorona - I mention these games fairly often in release threads, but this is the first I've actually played. It's a jrpg more about crafting than dungeon crawling, and was really good. I was trying to retire my old handhelds, but I might actually buy the other two Vita games in this series now.

Cyberdimension Neptunia - Anime nerds love these games, and I can see why. I thought it was hot garbage and will not be playing another. No offense to anyone who does like it. It's just not for me.



I also played Until Dawn (PS4) for Halloween. It was pretty good. Interesting enough for me to momentarily forget how much I hate horror movies.

Next up are a few things I got during Black Friday. Horizon Zero Dawn, which was one of my most anticipated games this year, Titanfall 2, and Pyre. These will probably keep me busy for most of December.

Titanfall 2 was probably the most satisfying no frill cod style first-person shooter campaign I've played in a long time. Pyre was beautiful in the way you expect from Supergiant with some pretty solid game design, though the weird pacing kept it from possibly being their best game. Also, Paper Boats is still their best ending theme. (Transistor)

Horizon Zero Dawn was amazing, and far bigger than I expected it to be. I had very few complaints, and the ones I had were a consequence of it being open world. Still, the world is beautiful and I wouldn't have it any other way I think.

I've been having a great time playing Subnautica these past couple weeks; I had picked it up as an Early Access quite a while ago, played a couple of hours but didn't get into it at the time. Now, in January it has reached full release status, and I've been having a great time with it. Incredibly atmospheric game.

It's managed to captivate me in a way games haven't for a couple of years now.

Before Hearthstone and WoW got their hooks into me again, I spent most of this year catching up on old PS1 games I never got to play when they came out. Grandia, Wild Arms, Suikoden, Dino Crisis, etc. For Halloween I played the Parasite Eve series, which were probably my favorite of these old games I played. All I've got left is Breath of Fire 4, Chrono Cross, and Xenogears but I need a break from both jrpgs and my Vita, and so I have started playing PS+ games from the year on my PS4.


The most recent (and reason why I'm bumping this thread) was Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. This game got a lot of flak when it came out, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. My only real criticism is that some of the level design was unsatisfying. It's hard to describe what I didn't like about it, but I sort of felt like exploration was a waste of time. The environments were pretty large and it would take a ton of time to explore every nook and cranny, most of which would only reward you with a few items you don't need and emails with no context. Meanwhile a lot of alternate routes are a bigger pain in the ass than simply taking the more obvious ones.

Example. Early on you have to pass a security checkpoint. There is a door to the left and a two doors to the right. The doors to the right are locked. The door to the left has the key card to one of the doors to the right. When you enter the other door to the right, you find a datapad telling you there is a keycard in the door to the left, as well as a grate that bypasses the door that the keycard works on. Once you continue on the path to the right, you bypass a few other obstacles to get to a destination. Oh right, and the door to the left also has a grate that bypasses ALL of this. :wtf:

Later in the game there are examples of alternate routes you only get hints to after you had already infiltrated the place. It feels like they are sacrificing tight level design in order to satisfy people who want overly complex but ultimately useless options.

People said it was too short, but I felt like if I played it any longer I would have gotten sick of it. It was also kind of janky, but less so than the previous game was honestly. I think this game is another example of how publishers can ruin public perception of a game to the point where the players find problems that don't really exist, just to satisfy their negative feelings, because like I said, despite my criticisms I thought this was a good game.


I also finally played Knack. It was terrible. Dreadful. It was actually made very well, but it's based off incredibly dated game design and I just cannot stand it. I'm the type of person that likes to beat the games I play in order to form a complete picture of them, but I was pretty tempted to just uninstall this.

I really liked Deus Ex mankind Divided :) but as you say it was a bit...lacking compared to the prior game


was playing Pathfinder Kingmaker for a while there, bit burned out and weather's gotten worse here so just reading currently rather than gaming
as the devs finally fix issues with Kingmaker it's a game I'd seriously recommend, LOT of good things about it if you liked Baldur's Gate style games
though, I do prefer turn based rather than "real time with pause".
Temple of elemental evil allowed tactical fun you cannot exactly replicate even with the good system Kingmaker has for pausing

I cheat though, as I HATE with a virulent passion games that force you to use "stat point buys", grrr!
let me roll frigging DICE to make my characters, ya bastards!!
*old school grump* :p
so I use an editor to set points how I want, oh and since all the bugs etc made me replay the game so much, sod it, few million gold pieces as well, I am NOT fiddle farting around with making money in game again and again....


oh played Temple of Elemental Evil again for few days there, was shocked when I legitimately rolled a character with stats of, iirc
18 17 15 15 14 12
on about 5th roll
COWABUNGA!! I'll buy that for a dollar! :p
thus she became my paladin. ya gotta luv a tank with +4 to all saves from Charisma....

I don't mind stat point purchases, because it beats hammering the "reroll" button until I get the minimum number of points I want. I've done several different characters in BG/SoD/BG2, and I can't think of one that did not have "18 in primary stat, 16/18 in CON depending on class, 18 DEX, 18 CHA, nothing else below 10". Oh, wait, there was one character that had average DEX because of the other stats I wanted, the dual Fighter to Cleric for the "cleric to 30" achievement run. She wore the DEX gauntlets all game.

Stat spreads can be fun, I've found that I don't mind when games leave them out altogether. The dynamics between tabletop and a computer game are just too wildly different for them to mean the same thing. A computer game is very specifically designed, while a DM can change things on the fly to fit the needs of the players. Rolling bad stats in a tabletop game presents interesting character opportunities, but rolling bad stats in a computer game often just makes it harder on yourself with no real benefit.

Really the only reason I can think to still include it (beyond nostalgia) is because some people really, really like min-maxing numbers. They get as much enjoyment out of having the best stats as someone else might from a story, or from a particularly challenging encounter.

Wool, being the terrible influence that he is, got me to pick Hollow Knight back up after letting it sit for over a year.

I'm not as good as a quick platformer as I used to be but I'm enjoying it quite a bit now that I'm not frustrated with it. Though, dying twice in succession several times has lost me over 4k of geo, and a couple of times it was while on my way to the actual bank.

If it makes you feel any better, you get more than enough money for anything you will need or want in the normal campaign. Though you may feel the sting if you want the optional convenience items you can buy in the Grimm Troupe update.