The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!
Please don’t forget to use the spoiler tag as soon as you start talking about a storyline.
Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth
I'm 25 hours in and barely touched the main story. Once they let me roam around I did nothing but side content. Just yesterday I got access to the "Pokemon" League and I see myself not touching any story content for another 5 hours. It's great.
Loved the game. I just did the main story and side stories as it's the plot and characters I play Like A Dragon games for; I wasn't interested enough in the Sujimon or Dondoko Island stuff to get into it. And no way am I paying extra to do New Game Plus!
Guild Wars 2. Love it.
Started playing in beta, took a break for years, and have been playing it again with friends most evenings for a year.
Amored Core 6. It's the first Armored Core that I have played. The setting and story are not really my thing, but the gameplay is a lot of fun.
Make sure to do all three endings. The story is deceptively pretty decent. You feel like a real badass by the end
I gave up on that game after dying to the helicopter boss for 30 mins straight lol
Try getting underneath/above and stick close to it, melee when you can, especially when it's staggered. I found it brutal as well, typical From serving that up right at the start hah.
Turnip Boys robs a Bank.
Go play it.
Cool didn't know there was a sequel or spinoff. Thanks for the heads up!
Watchdogs 2. I'm getting to old for this. Recently killed Halo Infinite, Farcry 4 5 6 and some others. Software Engineer. Been unemployed for a bit :/
IIRC Watchdogs 2 was slapped in the past for its cringe writing by all review channels I‘m following, so DWAI
Planetbase, it doesn't take long to figure out but I'm trying to unlock the other more challenging planets at the moment which just takes time.
I'm on the lookout for challenging survival management/city building games if anyone can recommend one? Something like Banished, This War of Mine or Frostpunk.
I felt like going back to swtor. My main account was disabled, expired or something and I can't recover it without calling some dumb schmucks working for EA support.
Went in on a secondary account I used to bypass the character restrictions and now I'm scratching the itch until it finally dies for good.
It has a daily login reward, some kind of battle pass, everything is paywalled, limited number of rewards, they changed character creation and unified classes, but pvp is active.
Overall, I don't recommend it.
I get nostalgia for it every now and again. A week of playing and finding no friends or fun kills that itch fast.
Papers please. Having fun so far doing the story
It‘s such a unique game, I‘d rate it way higher if bleak/depressing stories weren‘t a turn off for me, but I liked it regardless which should say a lot
Thirty hours into Yakuza: Like A Dragon. Main story has started to ramp up, but I keep getting distracted by the business management mini-game and the kart-racing minigame that I just discovered while wandering around the map. It never ceases to amaze me just how dense these games are and just how many side activities they managed to pack into one game.
Shrouded. Its bizar how well it plays for early access. Gameplay is fun, the enemies a little stupid but can be challenging non the less. And the game feels well optimized. My dedicated server is running and using less than 2gb of memory of the available 20gb and no lag. Then the building, it can be a bit finicky sometimes but it allows for so much freedom it's a fun aspect. Crafting also works good, in all I highly recommend it, and can't wait to finish the playthrough and cycle back in a year or so to see what it has become then. But it's already worth the money IMHO.
beat Pikmin 2, used a gecko code to stop the timer, gonna go for 100% now
Finally got on the Lethal Company bandwagon and I think I'm gonna have a lot of fun playing it with my kids.
Friend convinced me to try Helldivers 2 this past weekend. I had fun, but I also don't think it's as great as the hype it's getting either. Friend thinks it will be a long term playing game but I felt like I saw most of what it offered in 3 days of playing. Guess we'll see. I'm also trying out the FF7 rebirth demo. Wish I had more time to play stuff but this is all I have currently.
Still just a heavily modded Skyrim playthrough that still remains perfectly lore-friendly. But I'm strongly considering playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance soon. Unfortunately for me, the prospect of modding the hell out of Morrowind again is also calling to me.
Why walk when you can ride?
Helldivers 2 with friends. But the 1.0 of Last Epoch released Wednesday evening. Can't wait for the weekend !
How's Helldivers been? I was a big fan of the first game but I'm having trouble justifying the full price purchase with a lot of the reviews talking about crashes. I'll still probably end up buying it though.
I'm also a big fan of the first game. It's literally the same game but with a huge graphic upgrade. You will not be surprised by the gameplay loop.
But the big plus is the ambiance. I feel like I'm in an action movie (the fog, the effects, the music) and with friends it's awesome to share that feeling.
I don't have experienced any crashes so far on PS5. But we had long queues at the release. It's far better now (1-2 minutes yesterday). However the quickplay is still broken for me (tried yesterday). So if you don't have a group of friends to play with, it's gonna be rough without matchmaking.
Currently playing Lords of the Fallen. I'm almost to the end, it's been a lot of dying, but a lot of fun also!
Finally getting around to playing Disco Elysium. I know I'm late to the party but holy cow what a trip
Only been playing balatro. Now it's fully out. Hooray!
Far Cry 3 with Ziggy's Mod for added challenge... Casual version, I kind of like it.
Ocarina of Time randomizer keeps being pretty fun.
Oldschool Runescape.
Super Mario Bros. 3 is a nostalgia mainstay.
I also gave Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion a try and got to the second boss. I mean to get back to it, as it's a cute game and pretty funny.
Monster Hunter World. This game‘s got me in an iron grip. I‘m looking forward to playing the Tales of Arise DLC which is discounted rn to 20 bucks which is the kinda price I would‘ve expected to begin with.
Mario Kart on the side, playing the expansion pass courses, currently at „Mirror.“
Assassin's creed 3 remaster, Tomb Raider Trilogy, Just Cause... Its just a coincidence all im playing right now are old games, lol.
I thought Just Cause was pretty meh, Just Cause 2 was incredible regardless of the jank though (played it revently). If you decide to play the second installment, I recommend installing the grappling hook mod that lets you grapple from waaay farther - otherwise traversel becomes a pain since the world‘s insanely big. Also, you gotta turn off a few graphic options on modern PCs or the game crashes randomly (and will still crash regardless when you get close to the skull island, at least for me).
Playing Occupy White Walls occasionally. Playing Shattered Pixel Dungeon on my phone. Pondering buying that uhhh roguelite 'poker' deck building game whose name has gone out my head now
Balatro. It's good. I love making cursed poker hands with aces that count as every suit and granite blocks and then racking my score multiplier up to 86x with stacked jokers. It's a fun game.
I watched someone get like 15k with a single 5
Amazing, a great game you can make insane!
Finished my first a BG3 run, blind. Was considering starting a second run, with "perfect" choices (and mods) but it seems that patch 6 broke quite some things.
Gonna spend time playing "dad games", then. I don't know what's so appealing about those "X simulator" games, but I can absolutely get lost in them.
Patch 6 only really broke the script extender (well hotfix #18 really)
nvm, just checked, it's up to date! (hotfix #19 is supported!)
pretty much everything is up to date!
But reports about bugs introduced by patch 6 are still pouring in :( the two hotfixes helped, but I'm still gonna wait.
I started a Minecraft server with the Ars Nouveau mod. It's completely fantastic.
What's the mod about? I recall playing a feed the beast modded server ages ago and it was one of the coolest gaming experiences I've ever had
It introduces a modular magic system, where you learn spell components and make your own spells. Eventually your magic gets powerful enough that you don't need most tools. It also adds rituals, familiars, enchantments, and some automation.
I really like that instead of introducing a lot of extra fluff, it utilizes underused Minecraft ores, mainly gold and those purple crystals.
I'm still jamming on PalWorld. Set up a dedicated server and have 4 other people who hop on randomly and play, it's great to come across them while exploring. It feels like an alive world. Almost level 50 and breeding all the uber monsters with 4 legendary stats. This game just scratches all the right itches, and it doesn't even have the quests, raids, or other content they are planning yet. Too fun.
Still strolling through my snails pace playthrough of RDR2, haven't left chapter 2 yet and mostly been doing side stuff, hunting fishing and completing challenges. Looking for a damn badger and beaver but can't find either anywhere.
I also wish RDR2 had the same fishing minigame as FFXV. Not that it's terrible, but I wish it had the same depth. That game had the best fishing minigame I've played, almost worth the price of admission for that alone.
Nice. I saw people saying to do as much open world as you want and savor chapter 2 so I did just that. I've now got the White Arabian horse and the Legend of the East Satchel (amazingly useful), I've settled on my favorite guns and modded them up. I still have yet to complete all legendary hunts and fishes, but I was ready for a break in the grind so I've finally moved into Ch. 3
The game is great so far.
Sounds like what I've been doing, too. Finally found a badger yesterday for the satchel but still on the hunt for some other assorted animals. Sadly I think I'm locked out of some stuff because I killed the legendary bear as part of the story quest so the pelt despawned before I unlocked the trapper. Currently trying to plow through some gambler challenges for the gear, it might actually kill my enthusiasm though. And I'd like to combine them with some Bandit pieces but I've been hesitant because I am playing high honor.
The White Arabian seems great, im personally going back and forth between the Warped Brindle Arabian and the Tigerstriped Bay Mustang (was hell to acquire) for horses.
Currently have over 100 hours in Persona 3 Reload and I haven't even completed the game yet.
Always wanted to dive into P3P/FES until Reload was announced, and I'm so happy I waited. The game is very polished and I've heard it is a faithful remake of the OG P3. Definitely going for a NG+ afterwards!
Looking forward to diving into it as well. The price tag for a remake isn‘t worth it for me though, so I‘m gonna „patient gamer“ this one.
I'll be house sitting for 2 weeks away from my normal stuff, so I'll probably dip into game pass and play it then.
Replaying Ghost of Tsushima. I beat it on PS4 back when it came out and started a New Game Plus save, but stopped playing after that so never played the expansion. I got the Director's Cut on PS5 and have currently finished Act 1 and the expansion and am working on Act 2.
That game really captures a sense of lethality I haven’t felt since Ninja Gaiden 1/2 on the Xbox/360. Amazing
Palworld was on game pass so I gave it a shot. It’s actually pretty fun for a simple time waster. After this run I don’t think ill ever play it again unless they work in a really good story mode
Elden Ring and Dark Souls 1. And I intend to play them forever. Wish bb was on PC :(
Depending on how far you wanna go, it is IIRC (emulation)
Archmage Rises on Steam. It's in Early Access so there are some parts that are rough especially since it has generations history and quests (go see SoAndSo in NewTown. How do I find NewTown? Ask SoAndSo, he knows the area. 🤪). But it's fun and not as difficult as I was first afraid it was going to be.
The UI is decent but doesnt feel quite there yet: close button for shopping doesn't feel like it's on the correct place, font size for time of day is a bit to small for my 15 inch laptop screen at 1080p (not sure if changing resolution would help but non-native resolution on laptop never looks good IMHO).
I'm on my first character playthrough. It's a perma death open world RPG that has a story to it. The story so far (I'm a few game months in) seems to wait for you but certain missions have time limits once you accept them.
The economy and the cost of things...seem weird. Not bad, but not like other games.. And I'm fine with that. I like the ability to haggle with merchants when buying/selling(?) certain items.
Developing relationships give you little bonuses (according to the interface).
When attempting skill checks you get a d20 from that uses your bonuses. A 1 seems to always fail even when you get enough to pass by your bonus. I'd rather see the Pathfinder 2e system than the D&D d20 system when it comes to rolls so that there isn't a guaranteed 5% chance to fail even an easy check but that's not game breaking.
I definitely need to start away from gambling. I suck at it.
Content warning:
As an open life simulator, the finished game allows the player and NPCs to participate in a vast range of human experiences both bad and good, including: slavery, murder, cannibalism, sexual activity (non-graphic), pregnancy, and religious worship.
Last week I went deep into Next Fest and came up with a bunch of demos, to varying success. Tried Synergy (promising), Sword of Convallaria (great, but deeply concerned about the mobile/gacha systems), Guild Saga: Vanished Worlds (not great, borrows shamelessly from Divinity: Original Sin 2), and Balatro (surprisingly interesting).
For now, I'm kind of bouncing around, not being able to settle on anything. Might go back to Atelier Ayesha tonight.
Been alternating between replaying Elden Ring on my PC and the original Ratchet and Clank on my new (to me) PS2. Making good progress in both.
Currently working through the last level in R&C and I forgot how brutally unforgiving that game is with the limited health and scarce checkpoints.
I'm almost through the academy in ER. Fixing to fight whatshername with the giant baby and the kamehameha attack. Already beat that god-damn OP knight guarding the entrance to her boss room.
Balatro!
Back on my Rimworld addiction.
Hopping between:
Balatro and Helldivers 2
Sea of Thieves. Revisiting it after several years of not playing it, and finding it just as much fun now as it uses to be.
Against the Storm. Picked it up way back in early access and kind of thought it sucked. Saw some people talk about it recently and decided to give it another go, and it doesn't suck anymore! I suck at it, having lost every round, but I keep going back in, so I guess I like it now.
I'm playing persona 3 reload and like a dragon gaiden just now. Both really good games!
Persona 3 Reload. Only played a bit of the original but I'm loving this remake. The QoL updates make it feel more fun and less of a slog. And I love the newer graphic style.
Did a bit of helldivers 2 with friends. Good fun but between work and kids I don't have a lot of multi-player game time anymore.
Just finished streets of rage 4 . still playing through super Mario wonder l, and also GTA 4 dlcs.
Resident Evil 4 Remake. Just recently became a fan of the series
Playing "Thief: The Black Parade"
It's a fan mod released this year, for a game that was released in 1998. It was a labor of love that took 7 years to complete and is the most stunning mod I have ever seen for any game period.
They push the engine to its limits, the scale, creativity, level design and story are near perfection. The story and playtime are so good it feels like an official game. You forget it's not canon.
I can't believe this came along, it was truly refreshing. It won the 2023 ModDB mod of the year.
Mandalore did a great review, and mini tutorial about how to launch a 26 year old game on modern systems.
I can't play any game