The "What Are You Playing Now?" Thread

[Advent]

Borderlands 2 kick. Up to 54 in Ultimate Vault Hunter. Presents a pretty good challenge.

[Yttrium]

Finished Bioshock Infinite. I didn't see the ending coming, very nice. The gameplay was consistent and decent, but the railroading was a bit strong. I was tickled with the AI for both the baddies and Elizabeth. I started off going "Great, a jackass toon I don't want around" - but when I *spoiler* lost her *spoiler* I was frustrated by her absence. Any game that makes you long for the dinky mechanic when it's gone - that's a well-designed game.

Also, she fetched coins for me, which was helpful.

Next up - either Metro: Last Light (which seems to be a boring run & gun) or maybe... Skyrim? Hm.

[Wool]

For those of you guys playing Borderlands, Tiny Tina's Fortress (or something like that) comes out this month, I believe. It's basically a silly Borderlands take on Dungeons and Dragons, with Tiny Tina as the dungeon master.

[Wool]

The Last of Us was great, but it's also a bit draining so I didn't feel like playing it again, but I also didn't want to take the disc out, so I took a break from my PS3 this weekend and played through Max Payne 3, which I had gotten for $5 a week or so ago, but it took so long to download that I didn't have time for it before TLOU arrived. (hurray for run on sentences)

It was much better than I thought it would be. It's been awhile, but I have the impression that people hated on it more than it deserved. It was pretty much everything I could want from a Max Payne game. It "modernized" the combat without giving up what made it unique, and even made it better in many ways. It had crazy cheesy dialogue that you couldn't help but laugh at, and the action set pieces were great. Sure it lacked the silly comic book cutscenes, but the cinematics we got instead were unique and interesting. I think it was a good trade-off. The story was even comprehensible, which is not something I expect from action movie style games. Overall I had way more fun with this than I have with any of the recent Call of Duty games I've played.

Wool Approved Box Quote: Max Payne 3 is like Bastion, except the narrator is a drunk lunatic that shoots bad people in the face.

Also picked up Kirby's Epic Yarn for $10 from Walmart, playing with my sister on weekends. It's a very good kid's game that I get the impression not enough kids or people with kids knew about. You basically can't die in this game, but there is challenge in finishing levels well. Generally a good platformer, it has good variety, but still can get a little old. It's very charming and cute, with a unique visual style.


Not sure what I'm going to start next. I picked up Catherine and Persona 4 Arena as part of my quest to finish every PS3 game I still care about before the PS4 launches, so maybe one of those.

[Silke]

I bought FTL when it was on sale a couple days ago for 2.49. The game is fun as hell and I can easily lose an hour or so playing it. I'm starting to get a better idea of what to do but so far my best is stage 2 of the final boss. One tactic I haven't used yet is teleporting boarding parties onto enemy ships to seize them for better scrap rewards but I've read that it's supposed to be extremely effective.

[Silke]

I finally beat FTL. Game is very addictive and I'm still having a ton of fun with it. I know people who have been playing awhile and have mastered the game will say otherwise, but I'm still at the point where a lot of the game comes down to sheer luck. The game I won I finally had a lot of things line up for me where I got a full crew, cloaking device and the augment that lets weapons fire without breaking cloak, a teleporter and 2 drone defense units. With all of that the final boss wasn't that bad. Phase 1 was easy, just cloak and knock out the weapons as fast as possible with volley fire and teleports to the weapon rooms. Phase 2, cloak again and focus on the Drone control room. Once the drones are shut down, the rest is easy. Last phase was easy. Only 1 enemy crew was still alive so I forced him out of the pilots seat (reducing their evade to zero) and cloak before each weapon power surge weapon burst. Then it's just a matter of taking the ship apart.

[Yaxa]

Finally had a chance to pick up The Last of Us. Unfortunately my regular place was out, so I had to resort to GameStop, which not only charged €70 for the standard edition but also tried to sell me insurance for it. WTF?

[Wool]

I've never had it happen to me, but I've heard about them trying to get you to buy insurance. Just adds insult to injury with some of the other things I've heard they sometimes do. "Would you like to pay extra for insurance for this game we already opened but are still selling to you as new, you know, just in case we scratched it when we put it in the demo kiosk?"

[Naean]

Still working slowly through last of us. Also xcom enemy unknown came out for iOS. I'm enjoying that but I like the strategy gameplay and the base management is overly complicated and to me not fun.

[Yaxa]

I've never had it happen to me, but I've heard about them trying to get you to buy insurance. Just adds insult to injury with some of the other things I've heard they sometimes do. "Would you like to pay extra for insurance for this game we already opened but are still selling to you as new, you know, just in case we scratched it when we put it in the demo kiosk?"

I insisted on a sealed copy. If I'm paying for a new game, I will accept no less.

But what really bugs me about GameStop is that they talk to people like everyone's their buddy. Do that with the kids if you must, but as an adult customer I expect some courtesy. Being a gamer doesn't mean we're all in some super secret club.

[Yaxa]

Trying to avoid the launch thread in case of spoilers...

Does anyone else's PS3 fan get insanely loud during The Last of Us? The only time I've heard it go so high is in fan test mode.

[Silke]

Trying to avoid the launch thread in case of spoilers...

Does anyone else's PS3 fan get insanely loud during The Last of Us? The only time I've heard it go so high is in fan test mode.

I've got an original PS3 (bulky with full backwards compatibility). Mine tends to get very loud after awhile. It's, definitely, a heat issue. One trick I learned was to raise it off the ground a bit (I saw one person recommend cans of fancy feast since they raise the PS3 up and don't have a lot of surface area themselves). This has helped me quite a bit by increasing air flow but it still gets loud. Oddly enough, older games (PSX and PS2 games) seem to heat up my PS3 more than PS3 games.

As for The Last of Us, I finally bought it the other day with $25 in gift certificates. I plan to start soon (maybe tonight if I have time). I just finished my second playthrough of Valkyrie Profile 2 so this is next on my list.

[Wool]

I've had my fan get loud before, although not while playing The Last of Us. I would agree it's probably a heat issue. I used to vacuum the side vents to get dust out, not sure if that helps.

But what really bugs me about GameStop is that they talk to people like everyone's their buddy. Do that with the kids if you must, but as an adult customer I expect some courtesy. Being a gamer doesn't mean we're all in some super secret club.

This hasn't bothered me as much. I don't think it's a store policy as much as it's a product of the fact that the type of person that would want to work at a GameStop is the type of person that likes to play and talk about video games. Having a couple people have five minute conversations about a game while in line is kind of entertaining. It's better than the smug and amused looks you get whenever you buy a game at Best Buy.

[Yaxa]

I've had my fan get loud before, although not while playing The Last of Us. I would agree it's probably a heat issue. I used to vacuum the side vents to get dust out, not sure if that helps.

I clean mine fairly regularly (compressed air) and it's literally never done this during a game before. It wasn't even a particularly warm day, either.

My PS3 is in a kind of cramped position, upright but with the right side against a shelf board. None of the vents are covered. But during The Last of Us, this thing got louder than my first 360.

This hasn't bothered me as much. I don't think it's a store policy as much as it's a product of the fact that the type of person that would want to work at a GameStop is the type of person that likes to play and talk about video games. Having a couple people have five minute conversations about a game while in line is kind of entertaining. It's better than the smug and amused looks you get whenever you buy a game at Best Buy.

I wasn't waiting in line. The store was mostly empty. I went in and asked for a sealed copy of The Last of Us.

But I do get your point. When I was young, I had this small video/tabletop game store nearby and the familiarity was actually nice. They would let you try out anything you wanted. I spent hours (and tons of money) in that place.

The nearest GameStop, hover, is a glorified closet full of overpriced games that I don't enter unless I absolutely have to.

[Wool]

It might be because you haven't used the thing in awhile. I haven't had this happen to me recently, but I've been on a PS3 kick lately, and I wouldn't be surprised if when I first noticed this was a few months ago when I started beating my unplayed PS3 games.

[Yaxa]

It might be because you haven't used the thing in awhile. I haven't had this happen to me recently, but I've been on a PS3 kick lately, and I wouldn't be surprised if when I first noticed this was a few months ago when I started beating my unplayed PS3 games.

My Ni no Kuni binge wasn't that long ago. I'd just given the PS3 a ridiculously thorough cleaning before installing the 1TB hard drive and I was pulling 8+ hour sessions then. I use it as a Blu-ray player regularly, too. But I suppose The Last of Us is a far more technically demanding game than anything I've played on the PS3 since Uncharted 3.

I guess I'm just worried that it might finally be crapping out. It's a fat model (CECHL) after all.

[Gnizmo]

So I picked up Magic 2014 extremely excited about the inclusion of Sealed play, which is proven to be the most awesome way to play. Somehow they managed to completely screw it up. You get two slots to play the campaign mode, and play against the same decks as normal. If you want to do it more than twice you have to pay. The cards you get are pre-determined by your profile so you can't even delete it and start over. It broke my heart to see this all.

Fortunately the rest of the game is as fun as ever. Some really fun deck concepts. I am sold on the new green Eldrazi deck. I haven't really had time to play around with all the decks yet so I might find another favorite still. Slivers are moderately fun if a little limited in how the game plays out.

[Lysandor]

SWTOR + a little GW2.

[Yttrium]

I finished Metro: Last Light. Surprisingly good game! I didn't even know it came from a Ukrainian studio until after I finished it. It's a linear FPS story, but with a pretty decent plot and reasonable characterization / world development - perhaps more than Bioshock Infinite?

On a whim, I picked up the new Deadpool game.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
This is a badass, hilarious game. The play control is very responsive - almost too tight, in fact - and it all flows very easily. This game is a RIOT. I had no idea they could capture so much humor...
./pant pant pant
I have to take breaks because I'm laughing so hard. Whew.

[Wool]

Playing through the games I got during the Steam Sale, I actually only have three left, so I'll be done with them by the time I buy anything new.

While waiting for the Steam Sale I played Crysis 2, Dead Space 3, and Catherine.

Catherine was a bit disappointing from a narrative point of view. The puzzles were actually a lot more challenging than I expected and fairly decent, the graphics were good enough that I would really like to see Persona 5 on PS3, but the story wasn't as interesting as people made it out to be. It was supposed to be a mature take on real problems that people encounter during their daily lives, concerning relationships, trust, and honesty with a bit of a gothic horror twist. I don't remember my exact complaints, but I just wasn't very impressed with it.


Crysis 2 was better than people say it is, but not as good as I was hoping it would be. The gunplay was extremely fun, it reminded me of the original Fear, which is a good thing. The environments themselves were smaller than Crysis 1 (hence people's complaints) but they were still large enough to allow for you to approach the situation however you wanted. The problem with the game was that aside from the combat, everything about it was generic. There is only so many times you can see the same dramatic set pieces and still be impressed. All I could think while playing the game was how many times I had seen it all before.


Dead Space 3 was the best of the bunch, and much better than people on the internet say it is. I think it was probably the best game in the Dead Space series, despite the fact that there are many things the original still does better. Everything about it is just so well crafted, the things I didn't like were generally fairly minor. I think my biggest complaint was an attempt to force a really crappy love triangle sub-plot into the game. Luckily all it does is make you hate the characters during the very brief moments when you interact with them, it doesn't interfere with most of what you are doing.

The fact that the game is made for co-op does not detract from the experience in the way that people thought it would. The only time the thought even occurred to me was in boss battles when it becomes obvious that you were supposed to do one job while your partner performs another. The "horror" is not lost, although the first game still does the feeling of isolation and tension far better. Of course, in the first game you just sit in a corner and kill stuff shambling towards you, in this game (much like the second) you are constantly under direct attack at all times and will use far more health kits.

The micro-transaction system is completely irrelevant, even ignoring the glitch everyone assumed would get patched (it didn't). There is just no reason to use it unless you are impatient and want to build a gun right this second. You get so many resources just playing the game normally. You even get fake money to spend on one of the micro-transaction packs!

That reminds me, crafting guns is pretty neat, but the way your loadout works seriously detracts from trying new things. You can only carry two weapons at a time, and the process of building and rebuilding and storing weapons is a pain in the ass. I eventually got to a point where I had things that worked okay and just stuck with them.

On a whim, I picked up the new Deadpool game.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
This is a badass, hilarious game. The play control is very responsive - almost too tight, in fact - and it all flows very easily. This game is a RIOT. I had no idea they could capture so much humor...
./pant pant pant
I have to take breaks because I'm laughing so hard. Whew.

If you haven't seen them, they did some youtube videos to promote the game, with a guy (Ask a Ninja guy maybe? dunno) cosplaying as Deadpool and being a nuisance in the Marvel offices.