The "What Are You Playing Now?" Thread

[Wool]

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.

[Nerkahia]

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!

[Nerkahia]

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.

[Wool]

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.

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).

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.

[Nerkahia]

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.

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.

[Wool]

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.

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.

[Wool]

spoiler=I'm talking about:

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.

[Wool]

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.

[Milton Finkelstein]

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. :-)

[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.

[Nerkahia]

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!

[Wool]

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.

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.

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.

[Milton Finkelstein]

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.

[Wool]

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.

[Milton Finkelstein]

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.