What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[Rodin]

This morning I bought Disco Elysium on impulse, after reading a few reviews that made it look like exactly my kind of game. Will play it a bit over the weekend.

Disco Elysium is weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd. Mostly in a good way.

My first game over came when I critically failed a crime scene investigation check, and my Sherlock Holmes style character decided that being a cop was too damn depressing and went off to becomes a philosophy professor. A couple of points into your HP and Morale stats look like they'll be pretty necessary, because my next character had only one starting health and had a heart attack trying to get his tie off the ceiling fan.

I think it's going to be one of those games that I can only play in short bursts. There's a lot of reading and a lot of lore to absorb.

[Resileaf]

I forgot to mention here that I started playing Broforce. Then I finished it.

Now I'm on Middle-Earth: Shadows of Mordor.

[Cespenar]

I finished Enderal! That was a... more powerful experience than I expected. Got pretty invested in the story and all of the major characters as I played. I loved how the story played with the "wish fullfillment" theme of more or less every main character of such an RPG. Definitely advised to everybody who doesn't hate Skyrim's basic gameplay.

It's pretty good, and doubly so considering that it's a free game. I'd put it even above Skyrim itself, in almost any area other than maybe sandbox exploration.

Disco Elysium is weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd. Mostly in a good way.

My first game over came when I critically failed a crime scene investigation check, and my Sherlock Holmes style character decided that being a cop was too damn depressing and went off to becomes a philosophy professor. A couple of points into your HP and Morale stats look like they'll be pretty necessary, because my next character had only one starting health and had a heart attack trying to get his tie off the ceiling fan.

I think it's going to be one of those games that I can only play in short bursts. There's a lot of reading and a lot of lore to absorb.

That sounds really fun, and honestly I was sold the moment I saw the Baldur's Gate style dialogue-boxes anyway.

[Rodin]

That sounds really fun, and honestly I was sold the moment I saw the Baldur's Gate style dialogue-boxes anyway.

If having your lower intestine try to sell you on the tenets of fascism sounds fun to you, then this is the game for you!

And no, I'm not kidding. That actually happened. The game is flipping hilarious in a very dark fashion.

It's got the best dialogue system I've seen in ages. Having a high stat in a skill when a check happens isn't necessarily a good thing, and no amount of natural 20s will save you from a decision that was fundamentally stupid to start with.

One word of warning - it's much more an Adventure game than an RPG. I've yet to see any combat and the impression I've gotten is that there isn't an actual combat system. It's likely handled via dialogue boxes and cutscenes like everything else. The gameplay is lots and lots and lots of talking to people and getting hit with a metric ton of exposition.

[factotum]

I forgot to mention here that I started playing Broforce. Then I finished it.

Now I'm on Middle-Earth: Shadows of Mordor.

Shadow of Mordor is great fun. Shame they so totally messed up the sequel.

[thirsting]

Finally found a decent phone game: Alien Path. It's an an actual puzzle game, which rewards thinking and planning your moves. The ad system is not too annoying, and is mostly optional, which is a huge plus.

[NRSASD]

I finished Enderal! That was a... more powerful experience than I expected. Got pretty invested in the story and all of the major characters as I played. I loved how the story played with the "wish fullfillment" theme of more or less every main character of such an RPG. Definitely advised to everybody who doesn't hate Skyrim's basic gameplay.

Glad you enjoyed! It's frankly staggering just how good of a game Enderal is, given that it was developed for free by a team of enthusiasts in German. Not only does it blow Skyrim out of the water on the gameplay and narrative fronts, it manages to take a stab at a deeply philosophical style of storytelling as well. And nails it.

For all those who finished Enderal, what ending did you choose? And why?

Spoiler: Enderal Ending SPOILERS! Don't read unless you've finished, seriously!!!

Show

I chose to escape to the Sky City with Calia. Rebuilding civilization as a pair of probably immortal gods seemed promising, at least at first. If you take a moment to analyze the Aged Man though, it gets real bleak real fast.

[veti]

For all those who finished Enderal, what ending did you choose? And why?

Spoiler: Enderal Ending SPOILERS! Don't read unless you've finished, seriously!!!

Show

I chose to escape to the Sky City with Calia. Rebuilding civilization as a pair of probably immortal gods seemed promising, at least at first. If you take a moment to analyze the Aged Man though, it gets real bleak real fast.

Spoiler

Show

I chose to sacrifice myself while Calia got away. I mean, she's OK I guess, but I didn't feel so drawn to her that I fancied the idea of spending thousands of years with no-one else but her to talk to.

I have three quibbles with Enderal. One, I really hate the skill (level gain) system. I can't see what anyone thought that has going for it, as against vanilla Skyrim - it adopts one of the worst versions of the clumsiest element of a TTRPG. (Some rudimentary documentation of the revised skills would be nice, too.) Two, the unrelentingly bleak atmosphere - sure the player and their associates learn enough to become very depressed, but why is every single civilian in the city wandering around muttering "I just don't see the f***ing point"? Couldn't they insert at least one cheerful character? And three, in the last act of the game:

Spoiler

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The city is supposed to be under siege, but you wouldn't know. There's no sign of an army outside it, and nothing to stop you from wandering in and out exactly as you did before. It's only when we get to the final assault that the enemy suddenly materialises. That - seemed pretty sloppy, to me.

[Anonymouswizard]

Now I'm on Middle-Earth: Shadows of Mordor.

I really want to like SoM, but to me it didn't feel like a Middle Earth story. I finally dropped it after the sequel gave Shelob a human form, Batman+Middle Earth wasn't interesting enough to sell that to me.


I've been playing Fire Emblem: Fates: Birthright, and the tactical gameplay is fun, but I'm definitely happy that I went for Casual Mode for this playthrough or I'd have lost about six units by the route split. I'm looking forward to Conquest, which feels like it's going to be a more enjoyable story.

[tonberrian]

Picked up a new New 2DS XL and transferred my data onto it, then picked up Dragon Quest VIII. I played this a bunch on the PS2, loved it then, and loving it now. Just got to the part where we defeated Dhoulmagus! And then more bad things happen.

[Resileaf]

I'm looking forward to Conquest, which feels like it's going to be a more enjoyable story.

You might not want to trust those feelings too much.

[Anonymouswizard]

You might not want to trust those feelings too much.

'More enjoyable' not in the sense of 'feels good', but in the sense of 'thematically consistent. While Birthright isn't all hugs and kisses it just doesn't gel for me after the rather dark and sometimes bleak opening chapters.

[Battleship789]

'More enjoyable' not in the sense of 'feels good', but in the sense of 'thematically consistent. While Birthright isn't all hugs and kisses it just doesn't gel for me after the rather dark and sometimes bleak opening chapters.

You might not want to trust those feelings too much.

[Cespenar]

One word of warning - it's much more an Adventure game than an RPG. I've yet to see any combat and the impression I've gotten is that there isn't an actual combat system. It's likely handled via dialogue boxes and cutscenes like everything else. The gameplay is lots and lots and lots of talking to people and getting hit with a metric ton of exposition.

That honestly sounds even better.

[SPOILER]

I have three quibbles with Enderal. One, I really hate the skill (level gain) system. I can't see what anyone thought that has going for it, as against vanilla Skyrim - it adopts one of the worst versions of the clumsiest element of a TTRPG. (Some rudimentary documentation of the revised skills would be nice, too.) Two, the unrelentingly bleak atmosphere - sure the player and their associates learn enough to become very depressed, but why is every single civilian in the city wandering around muttering "I just don't see the f***ing point"? Couldn't they insert at least one cheerful character? And three, in the last act of the game:

I definitely see your point with the skillgain system, though since it ended up balancing the economy and the player's purchasing power, I'm kinda torn about it. I figure they just did it so that people don't just grind and turn the game into a power fantasy like they usually do with Skyrim. But there could be better solutions, yeah.

About the unrelenting bleakness, I didn't get that impression. The civilians were just repeating their lines, I think, instead of being part of an intentional setting tone emphasis. But that's just me.

[Zevox]

I've been playing Fire Emblem: Fates: Birthright, and the tactical gameplay is fun, but I'm definitely happy that I went for Casual Mode for this playthrough or I'd have lost about six units by the route split. I'm looking forward to Conquest, which feels like it's going to be a more enjoyable story.

'More enjoyable' not in the sense of 'feels good', but in the sense of 'thematically consistent. While Birthright isn't all hugs and kisses it just doesn't gel for me after the rather dark and sometimes bleak opening chapters.

Yeah, as Battleship said, might not want to get your hopes up there. When it comes to Fire Emblem Fates, the stories in Birthright and Revelation are pretty standard Fire Emblem stories; the story for Conquest is... well, without giving any spoilers, I guess all I can say is "worse."

[factotum]

So, just completed Subnautica, after 45 hours according to the in-game timer. It was a good game, but I'm not sure it deserves the universal plaudits it seems to get--I found I spent a lot of time just grinding for building materials, finding blueprints, and other busywork, and unless you were daft enough to go swimming into a leviathan zone, there really didn't seem to be any major threats in the game. Heck, my game had bugged out so there was a Sea Dragon leviathan in the central chamber of the final base, and I just walked through there in my Prawn Suit waving at it because I knew it had no chance of killing me so long as I kept moving. Even if you just looked at it as a building game it was far too limited and restrictive in what you could build to make it come close to, say, Minecraft. So, good, as I said, but not the absolutely fantastic game I was led to believe it would be, and probably not enough to interest me in Subnautica: Sub-Zero.

[Cozzer]

Re: Enderal

Spoiler: Enderal endings spoilers

Show

I chose the ending where my character sacrificed himself to save the continent. A big part of the superpowered main character's development is realizing how unrealistic his situation as the superpowered main character is, at least in my eyes.

If he chose to double down on that by convincing himself he could become not only a hero but a god, a better god than the ones who came before, it would mean he fell completely for the lies the High Ones were feeding him ("You are the only piece of the game that matters", they tell you at one point).

On the other hand, by delaying the Cleansing and letting the truth about it come out, he gives others the chance to change things and really completes his journey. That's how I decided to interpret the whole thing, at least.

Re: Disco Elysium

I played quite a bit of it during the weekend, and I'm loving it! As others have said, it's better to think of it as an evolution of adventure games rather than of RPGs. The politics and settings are all pretty interesting, but the part I love the most is the main character's journey from complete, utter failure of a man to... well, I'm trying to make him into a sort of decent person, if you squint. I'm playing him as somebody for whom the pre-game events were a wake-up call and is completely aware of the wreck he has bcome, though he might have become a bit too open and candid with his feelings (failing the karaoke check was the best scene ever). If the game doesn't tire me by the end, I'll probably try a Supercop playthrough where the main character hides his insecurities behind overconfidence and weirdness.

[Zombimode]

Some time ago I realised that I've never finished StarCraft (the first one including Broodwar). Not that I haven't finshed it, I don't even finished even one mission from Broodwar. At least the original campaign I played as far as the last Protoss mission, without actually beating it. It also must have been more then a decade ago.

With the intent of finally beating this classic RTS I got the Remastered (more like "reskinned") version about a week. I made good progress last week as I'm now in mission 5 in the Protoss campaign. Enough to reflect my impressions of the game so far.

And strangely enough, somehow the game is not as good as I remember... This has nothing todo with the game's age as I'm used to playing older games, even older RTS specifically. It's just the writing and narrative design isn't that much better compared to StarCraft 2 (and only mediocre in general). And the scenario design is... just ok. I mean I have still fun playing it, but pretty much no secanario really stands out. This feeling is not limited to stuff like scenario goals, scripted events etc. but also the map design and the gameplay that enfolds. Its all very "base-centric": you defend your base (and expansions) until you have a strong attack force, then you attack the enemy base(s). Most of the time the space between the bases is completely unused - there is no action, it just provides hindrances for your ground troops pathfinding AI.

But we will see how the Broodwar scenarios fare. What I've heard so far is that Broodwar ramps up the difficulty by a lot. Maybe that forces me to a more dynamic playstyle.

[Rodin]

Re: Disco Elysium

I played quite a bit of it during the weekend, and I'm loving it! As others have said, it's better to think of it as an evolution of adventure games rather than of RPGs. The politics and settings are all pretty interesting, but the part I love the most is the main character's journey from complete, utter failure of a man to... well, I'm trying to make him into a sort of decent person, if you squint. I'm playing him as somebody for whom the pre-game events were a wake-up call and is completely aware of the wreck he has bcome, though he might have become a bit too open and candid with his feelings (failing the karaoke check was the best scene ever). If the game doesn't tire me by the end, I'll probably try a Supercop playthrough where the main character hides his insecurities behind overconfidence and weirdness.

I'm trying to do mine as a full Sherlock Holmes type. Brilliant at crime scene investigation and deductive reasoning, but a total wreck when it comes to charisma and personal interaction. He's also got a drug habit the way Sherlock did.

I just learned how to appreciate art, and I'm going to try and incorporate that with derealization to turn him into a sort of spaced out dude who occasionally comes down from the clouds to solve stuff for the intellectual challenge.

[warty goblin]

So, just completed Subnautica, after 45 hours according to the in-game timer. It was a good game, but I'm not sure it deserves the universal plaudits it seems to get--I found I spent a lot of time just grinding for building materials, finding blueprints, and other busywork, and unless you were daft enough to go swimming into a leviathan zone, there really didn't seem to be any major threats in the game. Heck, my game had bugged out so there was a Sea Dragon leviathan in the central chamber of the final base, and I just walked through there in my Prawn Suit waving at it because I knew it had no chance of killing me so long as I kept moving. Even if you just looked at it as a building game it was far too limited and restrictive in what you could build to make it come close to, say, Minecraft. So, good, as I said, but not the absolutely fantastic game I was led to believe it would be, and probably not enough to interest me in Subnautica: Sub-Zero.

I mean fundamentally isn't grinding for building/crafting mats basically all survival building games are? This was my basic issue with Subnautica; I loved exploring the world and discovering the ecosystem, but in order to that I kept having to interact with the actual game mechanics, which I found tedious enough to torpedo the whole endeavor. Like, I could spend ten minutes or whatever hunting bits of some mineral, or I could do literally anything else.


Been playing a bunch of Ghost Recon: Ghosts again lately. I've concluded that it's basically a third person, slightly more tactical, and slightly less nihilistic take on Far Cry 2. You play as a scumbag who goes around shooting other, probably scummier, scumbags, in a relatively sparse sort of map, gradually amassing an ever-larger arsenal of scumbag-shooting tools while you go. The combat sandbox is broad enough to consistently generate interesting encounters, the enemy AI can often find its posterior with both hands and a map, and the scale and sparsity act as effective pacing mechanics. Importantly there's pretty limited progression, which means the game plays like a shooter, instead of an RPG with guns. Success depends therefore on actually executing the central combat mechanics well, not on whether you're shooting level X dudes with a level Y gun and Y > X

[Anteros]

Enderal was a fantastic game to me. The exploration was so much better than Skyrim's due to things not being tied to your level. The ability to explore an area far over your head, and be rewarded for doing so is something I've missed since Morrowind. Especially since Enderal actual features unique settings and items instead of copying and pasting the same generic snowy mountain that Skyrim does 1,000 times.

The characters, voice acting, and music were all also top notch. The only bad thing about Enderal to me is the plot,

Spoiler

Show

which is basically just a pure rip-off of Mass Effect.

So, just completed Subnautica, after 45 hours according to the in-game timer. It was a good game, but I'm not sure it deserves the universal plaudits it seems to get--I found I spent a lot of time just grinding for building materials, finding blueprints, and other busywork, and unless you were daft enough to go swimming into a leviathan zone, there really didn't seem to be any major threats in the game. Heck, my game had bugged out so there was a Sea Dragon leviathan in the central chamber of the final base, and I just walked through there in my Prawn Suit waving at it because I knew it had no chance of killing me so long as I kept moving. Even if you just looked at it as a building game it was far too limited and restrictive in what you could build to make it come close to, say, Minecraft. So, good, as I said, but not the absolutely fantastic game I was led to believe it would be, and probably not enough to interest me in Subnautica: Sub-Zero.

Well, I have to say that I disagree with most of this. You're right that the game is inherently grindy, but I didn't find it overly so. Once you make the cyclops you can just carry everything you need for a mobile base and scanner room with you, so finding materials is trivial. The struggle to build things and survive is the attraction to me.

You're right that leviathans are trivial to avoid if you want to, but a lot of the best loot and most interesting wreckages are in their areas. So sure, you can avoid them...but I don't know why you'd want to. They add a much needed element of tension to the game.

Overall, I might be biased because I'm deathly afraid of the open ocean and Subnautica definitely scratches that itch.

[-D-]

Disco Elysium is weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd. Mostly in a good way.

My first game over came when I critically failed a crime scene investigation check, and my Sherlock Holmes style character decided that being a cop was too damn depressing and went off to becomes a philosophy professor. A couple of points into your HP and Morale stats look like they'll be pretty necessary, because my next character had only one starting health and had a heart attack trying to get his tie off the ceiling fan.

Things you can do in Disco Elysium (list is nonexhaustive):

• Kill yourself accidentally with a Necktie
• Kill yourself by listening to your necktie
• Die from photosensitivity
• Shoot yourself to assert your dominance
• Die of Heart Attack, because you lost your badge
• Die of Heart Attack because you had the nerve to call her
• Help kid steal his dad's speed, then get high with the kid
• Run away from paying bills, by flipping the manager mid air
• ...then crashing into a lady in a wheelchair
• Promote capitalism
• Promote communism
• Promote both capitalism -AND- communism
• Discover the Homosexual Underground
• Become a Rockstar
• Become Hobocop
• Become "I AM THE LAW"
• Get stuck in the loop, while your Skills figure out a way to "reboot" you
• Evict a programmer into the streets, so kids can open a meth lab
• Realize that Kim is your best bro
• Realize Volition is also a bro
• Realize Volition is also not a living being, but a fragment of your schizophrenic psyche.
• Realize Kim is a character in a video game
• Become the part of the nonexistent Psyker division
• Become empowered by hatred of objects
• Get an actual art degree
• Discuss race theory with a buff looking Kipt
• Discover Wasteland of reality
• Discard Wasteland of Reality for Litany of Contact Mike.
• Admire your previous choice
• Discard Litany of Contact Mike for Date of Birth Generator

[factotum]

Once you make the cyclops you can just carry everything you need for a mobile base and scanner room with you, so finding materials is trivial. The struggle to build things and survive is the attraction to me.

You're right that leviathans are trivial to avoid if you want to, but a lot of the best loot and most interesting wreckages are in their areas. So sure, you can avoid them...but I don't know why you'd want to. They add a much needed element of tension to the game.

You can carry everything you need for a mobile scanner base using just a Seamoth with additional storage--it's not actually all that much in terms of materials: a Multipurpose Room, Hatch, Bioreactor, I-corridor, and the scanner room itself. That doesn't stop the entire process of building the base, starting the scan, and going around picking up the materials being quite tedious. As for leviathans, I didn't say avoiding them was a problem, I said they simply had no chance of doing anything to you unless you're swimming free--a Seamoth will outrun them and anything else will rather easily survive an attack from one. While exploring the Lava Caves in my Cyclops I got attacked several times by leviathans, and every time it was just a matter of using flank speed to get clear, then pop out and repair the holes. I never felt under any sort of threat unless I was swimming free or using a Seaglide.

Compare to Minecraft, when I'm exploring a cave looking for materials there is always a significant threat from creepers, skeleton archers and zombies, any of which have a real chance of killing you if you're caught unawares--that's the sort of tension Subnautica really needed but didn't have, IMHO.

[Cozzer]

Enderal was a fantastic game to me. The exploration was so much better than Skyrim's due to things not being tied to your level

God, that's so true. It actually felt like exploring a world, getting better at things and thus becoming able to tackle harder things. And as you get stronger and explore more dangerous areas, the scenario and enemies get appropriately stranger and more otherworldly.

[oxybe]

So I've been playing around with Rimworld. Fun stuff. it's Sims-ish enough for me to grow onto my settlers, their quirks and their sudden herd of corgis, but dangerous enough that I need to make serious consideration on where and how I setup base, who I bring as my initial 3 and who I pickup along the way.

I also ordered Dragon Quest XI definitive edition for the Switch. Haven't played one since... Well, since IX on the DS :P. Been waiting to see if it comes to Switch and now's a good time to get it.

[Cespenar]

Okay, started on Disco Elysium, and it really seems like what the people have been saying here, i.e. pretty awesome.

My nitpickiest nitpick so far would be that not every type of character customizations fit the starting story of "got so depressed and wasted after getting dumped that he goes through all shades of psychosis", but since:

1) It allows all the spectacular BS that comes forward,
2) And it may end up making sense in the end (didn't get so far yet),

...that I had to preface it with being a super-nitpick.

P.S. I don't like the "best ever" types of deals, but this might be among the best writings I've ever read in a game. The particular style and humor might not be everyone's cup of tea, though.

[Dienekes]

Some time ago I realised that I've never finished StarCraft (the first one including Broodwar). Not that I haven't finshed it, I don't even finished even one mission from Broodwar. At least the original campaign I played as far as the last Protoss mission, without actually beating it. It also must have been more then a decade ago.

With the intent of finally beating this classic RTS I got the Remastered (more like "reskinned") version about a week. I made good progress last week as I'm now in mission 5 in the Protoss campaign. Enough to reflect my impressions of the game so far.

And strangely enough, somehow the game is not as good as I remember... This has nothing todo with the game's age as I'm used to playing older games, even older RTS specifically. It's just the writing and narrative design isn't that much better compared to StarCraft 2 (and only mediocre in general). And the scenario design is... just ok. I mean I have still fun playing it, but pretty much no secanario really stands out. This feeling is not limited to stuff like scenario goals, scripted events etc. but also the map design and the gameplay that enfolds. Its all very "base-centric": you defend your base (and expansions) until you have a strong attack force, then you attack the enemy base(s). Most of the time the space between the bases is completely unused - there is no action, it just provides hindrances for your ground troops pathfinding AI.

But we will see how the Broodwar scenarios fare. What I've heard so far is that Broodwar ramps up the difficulty by a lot. Maybe that forces me to a more dynamic playstyle.

I have a feeling your setting yourself up for disappointing here. Don't get me wrong, BW is harder than standard SC. But AI got no lategame. Turtling up and waiting for the win is still a really optimal strategy except for timed missions and hero/stealth missions.

Though honestly I think you're setting your bar kinda high. I'm curious what RTS you know that has better scenario design than SC2. Honestly for the crap I give that game about basically everything else to do with the campaign (which I rank as a bit lower than mediocre in terms of story) the scenario design is the best I've ever played in an RTS with each mission generally pretty wildly designed.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Got the Combat Update for Forager, so I went back in with a new save file.

They really made an effort to balance out the skill paths. The Mining Rod is now an actual hassle to build, since it needs Electronics. Which means obsidian, which means fire biome, which means demons.

Having to defend my structures and animals from enemies is an interesting twist.

Some new crafting materials and gear tiers. Apparently there's a special "void" zone where you have to kill all enemies before the time runs out, but I haven't found a way to access it. Looks like I'll be losing another bucket load of hours into this game again.

[Resileaf]

Just completed Shadow of Mordor. My final verdict is that most of the game is fun, if repetitive, but that it suffers the same fatal flaw as Warhammer 40K Space Marine: The ending is terrible. The final bosses are incredibly disappointing.

The Nemesis system more than makes up for it though.

[Cazero]

Recently finished Unheard, a game about listening conversations to figure out stuff. The game is relatively short and has very little replayability, but it's cheap and I loved it.
The finale mess with your head in a way that is entertaining, well foreshadowed, and simply couldn't work in other media.