The "What Are You Playing Now?" Thread

[Ronaan]

Just picked up the Uncharted trilogy.

Some of the best games I've ever played.

[Wool]

I like Final Fantasy music, but was dubious that the rhythm portion of the game would stand up. I was thinking of getting it anyway, until I saw Rhythm Thief, which I may get instead.

Theatrhythm is also the first 3DS game to offer DLC in the form of downloadable songs. Those aren't integrated into the main game but are available only in the game's challenge mode. They're also, in true Square Enix fashion, ridiculously expensive at €1.00 for a single song. I thought Dissidia was already pushing it with 3- and 5-song packs for €0.99.

That said, it's a fun time killer, but unless you're a huge fan of Final Fantasy music, it's a questionable investment at full price (€40).

Dissidia has song packs?

One dollar a song doesn't sound that bad, honestly. At least not until you decide to buy all of them. I looked up the prices halfway through reading your post to determine if that's what happened to the opera scene, and was surprised they didn't cost like 5-7 dollars each. This is Square Enix afterall.

Just picked up the Uncharted trilogy.

Heck yeah, high five! I hope you enjoy them, not everyone does.

[Neofelis]

Some of the best games I've ever played.

Heck yeah, high five! I hope you enjoy them, not everyone does.

Well I've played the first one through on normal now doing it on hard, had a good time with it the first time through. Looking forward to 2&3. Got 1&2 cheap as a set and 3 came with the bundle.

[Yaxa]

Dissidia has song packs?

Yeah, there are four or five packs of background music from older titles.

One dollar a song doesn't sound that bad, honestly. At least not until you decide to buy all of them. I looked up the prices halfway through reading your post to determine if that's what happened to the opera scene, and was surprised they didn't cost like 5-7 dollars each. This is Square Enix afterall.

I guess it's fine if you just want a few favorites. But completionists will end up paying more for DLC than the game itself.

[Ronaan]

Well I've played the first one through on normal now doing it on hard, had a good time with it the first time through. Looking forward to 2&3. Got 1&2 cheap as a set and 3 came with the bundle.

The first one was too scary for me to consider a second playthrough. In fact I never really finished it (though I am at the end of chapter 19).

[Silke]

Despite having a large Steam backlog, I'm still trucking through the early Might and Magic games. I finished 3 a few days ago and am now working on 4 and 5 (both take place on different sides of the same planet and when both are installed together it creates one massive game). I've now chased Sheltem across 4 different planets and have him cornered now! He's going down!

[Wool]

I've started playing the games I just got from Steam. Stacking was cute, if exceedingly simple, and The Walking Dead is pretty cool so far. Surprisingly disturbing considering the art style. I smashed some zombie's head into an unrecognizable mess, and I kept smashing because holy crap stay away from me.

[Yttrium]

I've spent the past several weeks playing pinball. Yeah, pinball. I'm not a pinball guy, but I found a perfect emulation of real life pinball machines in the game released for the PS3/360 - The Pinball Hall of Fame (Williams).

I can't stop playing Medieval Madness. I just can't. I was addicted to it when I had access to the real game on a Navy base, and now that I have a *ridiculously* good emulation of it on a high-definition system... I can't put it down.

./sigh

My baby's first words will be "CATAPULT! DAMSEL! TROLL! MULTIBALL MAAAAAAADNESS!"

[Wool]

Not much time for games atm, so playing short stuff. Screwed around in Minecraft a little for no real reason, then started Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, which I got from the Steam sale.

It's about 4 hours long, I finish the last world, 97% overall completion, literally seconds away from the final encounter, and the game crashes. When I log back in it is telling my my save file is corrupted, and since the game only has one save file, it insists I need to start over. Kind of angry. My OC nature insists I finish it, but I barely enjoyed it the first time, I'm not wasting four more hours on this garbage. Games for Windows Live can get bent.

[Zaes]

Etrian Odyssey III for the DS is kicking my ASS. It's so grindy and old school that the challenge and multiple game over screens alone are keeping me entertained.

[Silke]

Finished Might and Magic 4&5 (World of Xeen). Sheltem has been defeated and Xeen has been re-unified. I have 6 from the bundle but taking a break from Might and Magic for now. I really liked the Sheltem and Corak story arc and didn't really care for the later Might and Magic / Heroes of Might and Magic linked story lines.

Now I'm starting into my Steam Sale backlog. Downloaded and started playing Fallout: New Vegas.

[Zaes]

Finished Might and Magic 4&5 (World of Xeen). Sheltem has been defeated and Xeen has been re-unified. I have 6 from the bundle but taking a break from Might and Magic for now. I really liked the Sheltem and Corak story arc and didn't really care for the later Might and Magic / Heroes of Might and Magic linked story lines.

Now I'm starting into my Steam Sale backlog. Downloaded and started playing Fallout: New Vegas.

World of Xeen was one of my favorite computer games from early childhood! The only M&M I enjoy more is 7 and that's just because I like killing a super hard mob at level one through sheer willpower

[Thwick]

I'm playing the games I purchased from the Steam Summer Sale.

Jamestown is a lot of fun and a game that I enjoy just picking up in spurts and playing for a little bit at a time.

Just started playing Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light - it's a fun isometric adventure puzzle game. The graphics are fine and the fighting is fairly simplistic, but I like that there are so many extra challenges in each level. I think it'd be easier with a controller rather than using the keyboard but it's working out okay. I'm having fun with it, and that's what matters.

[Mileron]

I picked up a couple cheapie games during the Steam Sale, so...

Hydrophobia - damn terrible FoV nearly gave me a migraine after 5 minutes
Orion: Dino Beatdown - same
Waveform - not bad, but feels like a flash game.
World of Goo - same, meh.

Space Pirates and Zombies - enjoying this quite a bit, oddly enough.

And thanks to Dale's terrible influence, I picked up FFXIII-2 for Xbox on sale after I found a gift card in my desk drawer. I'm really enjoying it. It feels like Chrono Fantasy 13-2 though, but then I didn't play the original XIII.

[Cee]

Rift.

It's actually nice to play a game that is not a time sink, that I can solo as much as I want and still have hard encounters like raids in EQ. I even do tradeskills which I hated hated hated in EQ.

For me Rift is the best of all worlds for mmorgs.

[Yaxa]

Based on Amazon's recommendation and against my better judgement, I ended up playing X-Blades for a few days. It's probably a strong contender for the title of "worst game of this generation". At least it was cheap...

[Thwick]

I'm still going through my Steam Summer Sale backlog. Just beat Lara Croft and GoL. Now nearly 75% through Jamestown (which is awesome!) and about 1/3 of the way through Time Gentlemen, Please! which reminds me a lot of Day of the Tentacle in its point and click adventure goodness. The dialogue is great too.

[Wool]

Got distracted by the Secret World free weekend and Minecraft for a bit, but I lost my Pegasus, which bummed me out enough in Minecraft to get me to set it aside and start playing my Steam Sale games again.

Right now: Alan Wake.

It's made by Remedy, the guys that made the original Max Payne games, and you can tell. It's a little less cheesy but still has that moody narrative style. It also has a ton of very silly collectibles, including audio logs in the form of pages from the novel the game is sort of about, and terrible tv programs that spoof the Twilight Zone.

The game itself is fairly cool. More enjoyable survival horror than Resident Evil 5 was, although it's still not particularly creepy or scary. The first thing I noticed when booting it up was that the mouse controls were terrible, even after disabling mouse acceleration I found I couldn't stand how floaty it was and quickly switched to gamepad. The controls themselves still feel loose, I suspect because they don't want you to ever feel like you are in control of combat. Along with somewhat limited ammo (it's common enough that you always have some, but rare enough that you never have much), it's got a much more anxious feel than RE5.

The story is fairly interesting, and told episodically like a tv show. I recommend you play the game this way as well (One, maybe two, episodes per sitting), because the game is extremely repetitive. You are given a basic premise and then spend a ridiculous amount of time traveling through one random location to another performing the same actions again and again. Honestly it detracts from the story a bit, but the game would only be a few hours long otherwise. I'm pushing through the game anyway because I have a lot of other stuff to play and don't want to play multiple games at the same time, but yeah, pace yourself with this one or you won't enjoy it.

Oh right, and the environments look pretty amazing at times. The character models are a bit dated though. Not dramatically so, but enough to be noticeable.

Based on Amazon's recommendation and against my better judgement, I ended up playing X-Blades for a few days. It's probably a strong contender for the title of "worst game of this generation". At least it was cheap...

Why does Amazon hate you? I will play almost anything, but I'm not sure even I could stomach that game.

[Yaxa]

Right now: Alan Wake.

I played Alan Wake when it originally came out for the 360. I thought it was fun, but as you said, very repetitive. What probably bugged me the most was the constant emphasis on the "light" mechanic, whether it was running from lantern to lantern to stay alive or killing stuff. A bit like Alone in the Dark's obsession with fire.

Why does Amazon hate you? I will play almost anything, but I'm not sure even I could stomach that game.

Beats me. Apart from a very few brief moments, the game truly is terrible. I didn't even try for the good ending. I was just glad when it was over. Ironically you're rewarded with less revealing outfits for Ayumi when you finish the game.

[Thwick]

Only 6 years late to this party, but three of my friends and I all purchased the L4D/L4D2 bundle from the Steam Summer Sale and we are about 66% of the way through L4D. What an amazing game. The atmosphere and sound are both extremely well done and the graphics still hold up really well. We are having a blast playing through it and are pumped about all of the L4D2 that is still left for us.