The "What Are You Playing Now?" Thread

[Milton Finkelstein]

That's depressing. I really loved the last one! Was looking forward to this one.

Yea, its a damn shame. Still if you loved the previous one, like I also did, then I think you should give this a try too. Just to get your hopes up for something as good as the previous one, and maybe see if you can get the new one at a discount if possible.

[Wool]

I wonder if that will mean I like or more or less than the previous one. I was very impressed by it, but I wouldn't say I liked it. I think Wolfenstein was maybe more my speed.

Incidentally I finally made time to play Wolfenstein 2 a month or so ago. After hearing mostly negative things about it I was surprised to find that it wasn't so bad! Really really really dumb though! I liked it enough to play Youngblood too, which also wasn't as bad as I was expecting after how hard everyone panned it. Not good mind you, but not bad either. Very clearly a budget title.

Currently playing Metro Exodus, which is just like all the other Metro games. Impressive visually, poorly optimized, good shooting, frustrating clairvoyant AI. Each one gets better while sort of staying the same.

[Wool]

I'm finally playing Tales of Vesperia, one of the few games I've ever port begged for. It still looks and plays great. My only criticism is that I feel like I'm unlocking a lot of combat options that I'll never actually make full use of before I beat it, and I've got too much other stuff on the waiting list to play it a second time.

Still, I can see why some people consider it to be the best Tales game.


I also played Battlefleet Gothic: Armada on Game Pass recently. From the screenshots and trailers I would have never known it was an RTS. I thought this game was extremely interesting mechanically, but the cheating AI sort of ruined most pretenses at strategy and I eventually just brute forced my way through the campaign. Very cool game though.

Oh right, it's based on Warhammer 40K and largely consists of very small naval battles. You will generally field 2-6 ships depending on class (I usually ended up with 3). They all have their own weight to them, with different accelerations and turning speeds. A fair amount of the strategy comes from positioning to take advantage of which direction your weapons are facing. My broadsides ships would use their thrusters to line up torpedo shots, then return to broadsides in time for the next salvo.

Meanwhile I also had fast forward facing attack boats with advanced boarding team abilities that I would teleport behind enemy vessels. It was cool. Versus anything other than Orks. Screw Orks.

[Wool]

I played a ton of spooky stuff for Halloween. I don't usually like horror games (or horror in general). Generally I feel like for something to be horror it has to make you uncomfortable, and to do that in a video game you usually do things that make it not very fun to play. Stuff like Amnesia or whatever is the worst because the main mechanic is hide and try not to be annoyed while the monsters breaths on your neck. Stuff like Resident Evil is better for me because they are actual games. Anyway here's what I played:


The Evil Within - I respected it more than I liked it. Monsters were very cool and I enjoyed the harrowing experience, but I was mostly just glad when it was done.

The Evil Within 2 - Does that thing that sequels do where the game is better but the horror is worse as a result. I had a really good time with this.

Days Gone - That Sony game about a biker guy looking for his wife in the zombie apocalypse. I was surprised at how fun it was. This is one of those movies/games that critics hate but audiences seem to like. Every negative thing I heard about it was true, but it was fun so I liked it anyway.

Resident Evil 7 - I had been putting this off for a long time on the slim chance I ever got a PS VR. I was still worried I was making the wrong decision when starting this now but that doubt quickly went away. This game was amazing, even for someone who doesn't like horror. It got a little stupid near the end (It's Resident Evil, so of course it did), but I was surprised at how much I liked it.

[Wool]

I finally got around to playing Mass Effect Andromeda. It wasn't very good, but I had an okay time with it anyway.

[Mileron]

Dale got me back into randomizers - this time, Final Fantasy VI. The first seed we both completed I did in a hair over 9 hours. The second seed I did solo and finished in under 3. My current seed is a fuster, as the characters I've been given can't equip much outside of their initial starting gear, and I'm having trouble beating the randomized bosses to be able to get gear/characters/Espers.

Also got into No Man's Sky again shortly before the Expeditions update and have put a few hours into that over the last month or so (mostly in early mornings before work/on weekends before wife gets up).

[Wool]

My PC is in bad shape so I'm still messing around with my PS4. Played Borderlands 3 and Marvel's Avengers on PS Now. After that free BL2 DLC promoting the third game I was pretty sure I was done with the franchise but to my surprise I still found it fun. The writing was completely awful though. So so bad. Crazy bad. I also got sick of the loot pretty fast. The number of gun variations, how many you have to sort through, how often you need to upgrade/replace even the ones you like. It all got pretty irritating.

I only just started Avengers. I can already tell you I have no interest in the games as a service loot/exp grind. I just want to play the campaign. So far it seems fine but not great gameplay wise. The premise of the story kind of annoys me but I'm enjoying the ride. The portrayals of the characters themselves have been the best part so far. Every interaction/dialogue has been great. Kamala especially is a lot of fun. I know a lot of people probably weren't ready to move past the MCU, but this game is probably better for not shoehorning those likenesses/personalities in.

Oh right, I have also been playing Overcooked 2. I thought my niece might like it but it's too hard for her. But the dang thing is so good that I ended up playing the rest of it by myself.

[Nerkahia]

Currently playing Metro Exodus, which is just like all the other Metro games. Impressive visually, poorly optimized, good shooting, frustrating clairvoyant AI. Each one gets better while sort of staying the same.

Metro Exodus just popped up in my Steam recommendations. It looks very interesting to me and I'll probably give it a shot.

I've not played any of the earlier games though. I'm usually the type who will purchase the earlier games in a series to play through as they were released, if I'm interested in the latest. But if these in particular are pretty outdated and more focused on survival than RP / FPS, I don't know that I will.

What do you recommend?

[Wool]

I'm the same way. I like to start from the beginning, sometimes even if the beginning is bad, just to see the whole journey and see how much a thing improves. For example, I forgot to post about it here but I recently played through the old Warcraft games again and I started at Orcs & Humans despite remembering it being pretty bad.


Anyway, Last Light (the 2nd one) probably still holds up. I think I overall liked it the most. Fans will consider me a heathen, but I thought 2033 (the 1st one) was bad even back when I played it. Might still be worth playing if you want to see where it began or like dark tunnels. You spend most of your time in the Metro and the surface is basically thought to be hell, but each consecutive game spends more and more time there.

I wouldn't worry about survival mechanics. There is a bullet economy that I didn't really find that impactful and you have to manage mask filters, but that's about it. The real problem with the first one is just shoddy design. They did re-release both of the first two games in remastered "Redux" editions. I don't know if this makes 2033 any better or not, but they are pretty cheap on sale so your only real cost is time. The atmosphere is the general draw for all three of them, and each of them has a slightly different vibe.

I think Last Light is still worth playing. 2033 could be hard to go back to if you aren't prepared for frustration, but it's still just a shooter. Just don't play it on hard.

[Mileron]

On my trip to Belfast, I played a number of hours of Ys 8 (in the hotel room bored after 8pm and avoiding TV) and a handful of hours on Smash Bros (on my flight home) on Switch.

Now that I'm back home, I picked up American Truck Simulator: Wyoming (for which I've been waiting months) and FFIV Pixel Remaster.

And my body is still on GMT

[Silverblade-T-E]

Previous "Metro" games sucked, IMHO because they were so terribly linear

awesome story, very eerie
but that damned forced, narrow game world was huge loss

[Nerkahia]

I'm the same way. I like to start from the beginning, sometimes even if the beginning is bad, just to see the whole journey and see how much a thing improves. For example, I forgot to post about it here but I recently played through the old Warcraft games again and I started at Orcs & Humans despite remembering it being pretty bad.

Anyway, Last Light (the 2nd one) probably still holds up. I think I overall liked it the most. Fans will consider me a heathen, but I thought 2033 (the 1st one) was bad even back when I played it. Might still be worth playing if you want to see where it began or like dark tunnels. You spend most of your time in the Metro and the surface is basically thought to be hell, but each consecutive game spends more and more time there.

I wouldn't worry about survival mechanics. There is a bullet economy that I didn't really find that impactful and you have to manage mask filters, but that's about it. The real problem with the first one is just shoddy design. They did re-release both of the first two games in remastered "Redux" editions. I don't know if this makes 2033 any better or not, but they are pretty cheap on sale so your only real cost is time. The atmosphere is the general draw for all three of them, and each of them has a slightly different vibe.

I think Last Light is still worth playing. 2033 could be hard to go back to if you aren't prepared for frustration, but it's still just a shooter. Just don't play it on hard.

Cool, fair enough. I went ahead and picked up the bundle. I'll give it a go as soon as I finish my NG+ Witcher 3 campaign.

[Ninetoes]

Been focused on Destiny 2 - traditional MMOs haven't been doing for me and I enjoy the looter shooter style, especially as it is done in D2.

[Wool]

I like to play a season appropriate game for Halloween and this year I tried Alien Isolation. I respect what it represents but I personally hated it. There is no tension or suspense when the monster is in your grill all the damn time, and the mechanics don't make that satisfying either. Ugh just ugh. I only got about halfway through it before giving up. Maybe I'll try again next year.

[Delores Mulva]

Since my buddy picked it up while down with COVID, I've started playing Magic the Gathering: Arena. I've cleared all the colour challenges, entered all the promo codes, and am at the point of doing daily quests with the premade decks. Haven't started deckbuilding or doing anything other than Play mode. First impressions: Play doesn't seem to do any sort of matching other than "are two people available", XP only being awarded on a win is bad (even Hearthstone knew to divorce wins from major rewards in the end), I'd forgotten how obnoxious mana screw/glut and "pauses for every phase to allow for instants" were, awarding premade decks as quest rewards to new players is a great idea. I hope there's in-game documentation for all the game modes, because there's a mess of them.

[Milton Finkelstein]

I like to play a season appropriate game for Halloween and this year I tried Alien Isolation. I respect what it represents but I personally hated it. There is no tension or suspense when the monster is in your grill all the damn time, and the mechanics don't make that satisfying either. Ugh just ugh. I only got about halfway through it before giving up. Maybe I'll try again next year.

I gave up on it as well.
I really loved the design of the environments, as it's very true to the original movie. But the game itself got really frustrating fairly fast, as it became more about hiding in a closet than actually going through the story.

[Wool]

I watched a Critical Role promotion for Elder Scrolls Online and it made me want to try it. But since I was in a penny pinching mood while waiting for sales this month I ended up finally trying FF14: A Realm Reborn instead. I don't like everything about it, but I've been having a good time. Especially since it's basically free. Not sure how long the server queues are going to be once their new expansion launches, so I'll probably just stop at the free version cap and try out the expansions everyone always gushes over another time. I'll probably be fatigued with it by then anyway.

I also finally got around to playing Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. It was a lot more fun than I was expecting.

I gave up on it as well.
I really loved the design of the environments, as it's very true to the original movie. But the game itself got really frustrating fairly fast, as it became more about hiding in a closet than actually going through the story.

Glad it wasn't just me. I remember it being fairly well received and didn't feel good trashing something people liked. It probably didn't help that instead of being anxious about the monster like the game intended, I was constantly anxious about when the next point my computer was going to crash. No checkpoints meant I replayed the same sections more times than I would have liked.

[JungleHeart]

Sorry, bumping an old thread. Playing Tales of Arise right now, fresh off finishing Scarlet Nexus at the start of the year. Anyone else into JRPGs?

[Wool]

That's what this thread is for. And I like jrpgs but I don't always find time for them. Haven't played Arise or Nexus yet. My next one is probably going to be SMT5.

Right now I'm playing Code Vein and then a few of the Yakuza games on Game Pass.

[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.