What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

[Triaxx]

While I added a mod to make the Moonpool repair docked Seamoth and Prawnsuits.

[NeoVid]

Well, my circle of gaming friends and I have gotten totally addicted to several games recently, thanks to Steam sales and a recent Epic free game. One of them I hadn't even heard of before I got it... our new addictions are:

Armello. An online board game that sat on my Steam wishlist for years, I found out some of my friends already owned it right when it went dirt-cheap. So I grabbed it, tried it out and learned that a game that's kept a player base for 5+ years really is good. We got even more into Armello when we discovered that private matches allow everyone to use DLC characters owned by anybody in the match. Since we'd instantly gotten to like the game enough that we wanted to get the other characters, we coordinated and all got different packs. Once I'd tried most of the characters and developed a decent grasp of the game, I jumped into public multiplayer, which turned out to be way less stressful than I was worried about. I got the game months ago, and I'm still playing it every day, which shows why it's got the staying power it does.

Deep Rock Galactic. I'd only heard of this one late last year, even though it's had its third anniversary. That 3rd anniversary event also happened to be a free weekend, which sealed my fate... I knew a bit about this game, and learned it's a team PvE co-op game, probably my favorite genre... except that being my favorite genre means I already have a bunch of games in that vein which I've already put a ton of time into, from Vermintide to Warframe, so I hadn't looked at Deep Rock very much, thinking I didn't need yet another one. Then I tried it, thanks to the free weekend, aaaand now there is no escape. Mining on an alien bug-infested planet that's so deadly the only miners who can survive it are heavily armed dwarves is freaking awesome. The big difference from other games in the genre is the array of mobility options each class brings to the missions... I immediately gravitated to playing the Driller, and found an attentive Driller can basically smash the cave layouts into the shape your team wants, not what the game intended. That's the kind of thing I wish was possible in more games!

And finally, For the King. This is a game I hadn't even heard of before one of the other members of my D&D group told me it was free on Epic, so I had to join him for a multiplayer game and try it out. I had no idea what to expect, and my first trial run of the default adventure made me realize that For the King feels a lot like a really oldschool D&D campaign... as in, the characters' lives are always in danger no matter how well prepped you are, what you'll run into along the way can be extremely random and not intended to be an appropriate challenge, a couple of bad rolls can end a campaign, and the PCs start out unqualified to be adventurers. It's insanely fun. It took me a while to realize that it's a roguelike... after all, you're in a randomly generated world with no idea what you'll encounter, a vague idea of an objective, and have to start over from the beginning if your party dies. After the first couple of sessions of multiplayer that went as long as our tabletop games tend to run, I knew he was right to recommend it to me. The bastard. He's the same guy who convinced me to try Deep Rock, too. Next time he tells me there's a multiplayer game we need to try, I should probably just run while I have the chance.

[Rynjin]

All very good games. Haven't played Armello in a long time (friend who has the DLC has been unaby to play games for about a year, sadly), but fond memories.

Deep Rock is one I always keep installed for ehen me and some friends get a hankering.

For the King I had fun with cooping with a friend; bit of added challenge we were only running a duo team. Very RNG heavy. Once we beat both campaigns we dropped it completely though. Very low replayability IMO.

If you want another good board game, pick up Gremlins, Inc. excellent way to deternine who your friends really are. It's "fun"!

[Lord Raziere]

in my civ 6 game, china went down easier than I thought. the catapult made attacking cities much easier than throwing cavalry at them, which my mongol empire is specialized in making. the last remaining empire aside from myself I know of on my continent is brazil, so that is probably going to get conquered next. I did make the mistake of putting a city in a desert it seems, and I've been trying to work on production because for some reason much of the production rates in the cities I conquer are horrible. but I guess thats the downside of playing a domination focused strategy: I don't exactly have the best infrastructure or anything to make society work better internally and all my recently conquered cities probably don't like me. but hey, its probably going to be fine as long as I keep repairing what I break/pillage and keep my mongol horde war machine rolling.

[factotum]

OK, weird. I fired up New Vegas the day after my previous issues just on the offchance, and waddaya know? Working fine. Still have no idea what went wrong first time around. So, finished up Dead Money (the vault is *so* annoying with all the unshootable speakers setting your collar off), have blown Benny's head off and retrieved the Platinum Chip, and gave it to Mr House. Decided the next thing I'll do is Old World Blues since I'm already way overlevelled for it (needs 15+, I'm 28!)--going to skip Honest Hearts entirely, because I don't remember it being all that much fun and I'm even *more* overlevelled for that one.

[Triaxx]

Yeah... OWB has the highest level scaling though.

[NeoVid]

For the King I had fun with cooping with a friend; bit of added challenge we were only running a duo team. Very RNG heavy. Once we beat both campaigns we dropped it completely though. Very low replayability IMO.

To tempt you to try it again, I'll tell let you know that For the King now has six adventures, not counting the DLC one.

[Rynjin]

To tempt you to try it again, I'll tell let you know that For the King now has six adventures, not counting the DLC one.

I know they added a pirate one we tried when it first came out, but never finished it. Think we were just kinda burnt out on it. 49.6 hours of enjoyment wasn't too bad for a game we bought for...$15 I think?

[Eldan]

Haven't found any vision quests yet, but from what I hear online, they are kinda disappointing and short. Some of them lead to alternate endings, but people call those unsatisfying too. Hopefully, they aren't too bad, I really want to see them.

[Cygnia]

"Horizon Zero Dawn" was on sale at Steam, so I've picked it up on a friend's ravings.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

"Horizon Zero Dawn" was on sale at Steam, so I've picked it up on a friend's ravings.

Curse you for pointing that sale out to me! I was just wondering if I should give it another go (started it on a friend's device a couple of years ago), and now I have to!

Finally reached Hades' epilogue. Not sure if I'll keep playing or not, now, since it was the story that was the main draw, and I've wrapped darn near everything up in that department.

I've been playing a bunch of The King's Bird, and I have to say, I really like it. It's a momentum based platformer about running, jumping, gliding, and swooping your way to the end of the level. The moveset hasn't changed since the start of the game, but it keeps introducing new challenges, ramping up the difficulty, and occasionally changing the format for a level, all at just the right rate. And it's just great how the music swells as you do a gigantic swoop. Would definitely recommend.

[Lord Raziere]

I made a surprising amount of progress in Nioh 2, completing three missions, two of which involve me fighting the same boss.

My Civ6 game on the other hand, has met with some problems. I seem to have gone broke and its affecting my armies, getting rid of units because I can't pay them. I see I'll need to learn how to manage my economy next. also Brazil seems powerful enough that I can't pull the same thing I did with China now that they have a science lead and are basically in renaissance tech now, also having enough influence to make their cities rebel when I catch them. hm. my mongol horde strategy seems to be losing steam. there is still more for me to learn about Civ6.

[Kantaki]

Got RingFit Adventure for Easter.
It's surprisingly fun considering it's a (not even) thinly veiled attempt at making you exercise.
And it works.
Punching monsters? Great.
Exercising? Meh.
Punching monsters by exercising at them? Absolutely priceless.

[Silverraptor]

Got RingFit Adventure for Easter.
It's surprisingly fun considering it's a (not even) thinly veiled attempt at making you exercise.
And it works.
Punching monsters? Great.
Exercising? Meh.
Punching monsters by exercising at them? Absolutely priceless.

I was actually fairly interested in that. I liked the Wii Fit when that was a thing, but didn't know anyone who tried Ring fit and had an opinion on it. Would you recommend it?

[Kantaki]

I was actually fairly interested in that. I liked the Wii Fit when that was a thing, but didn't know anyone who tried Ring fit and had an opinion on it. Would you recommend it?

Speaking as someone who wouldn't exercise otherwise?
So far I'm definitely having fun.

Even outside story mode there's enough options to put together some exercise program (just "running"* down the paths without fights is pretty nice too. Good for when you can't go out.), I haven't tried out the rhythm game yet, and my opinion on the main game should be clear.

Difficulty adjusts pretty well as far as I can tell and the game is good enough at explaining and recognising the exercises I can follow it.
Also, while I didn't need to try it yet, story mode has the option to do exercises you can't do for some reason with button controls.

*Well, running on one spot or doing squats if actual steps are to loud for wherever you play.

[Anonymouswizard]

So I'm at the final dungeon in Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse/

Spoiler

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So I fought my way through the Cosmic Egg, had little trouble beating the first three bosses, but Mitra-Buddha was annoying, especially with how Dekaja stops working near the end of the battle. After running in circles to refill my MP I went up a floor to pick the BBFs route instead of the Neutral route.and found Dagda and Vishnnu-Flynn much easier. Theonly issue there was triggering the bug where the mid-battle question gets shown in Japanese.

Then the game ended with a happy, hopeful ending, and then I get told to go to another dungeon to fight the big boss man himself. Not that I'm against the dungeon and boss being in the 3
.game, but with the game focusing so much on the Divuine Powers, including having them practically win Armageddon and nearly succeed in creating their new universe going back to fight Merkabeh's employer feels like we're taking a step back into a resolved subplot. The game could have ended after the Cosmic Egg and the route would have felt complete (although I understand that the dungeon is a more natural fit on the other neutral route).

But I also hate this dungeon, each floor is significantly more massive than any other dungeon in the game and the teleporters disguised as doors do not help me get a mental picture of how it all connects up.

In addition, as a break I decided to see where this series came from and fired up the fan translation of Megami Tensei II. I've beaten Devil Busters, and so I'm on the game proper, and the first person navigation isn't that bad (althoughI miss Strange Journey's sidestep), but I do feel like I'm expected to grind significantly more thanI have in this area just to level up the Friend.

[Zevox]

I've started playing Rome 2: Total War again. After all the RPGs and action games I've been playing since the holidays, I felt like breaking things up with a strategy game. I've only played once before, as Rome, so this time I decided to play a faction that actually gets archers, since I was surprised that Rome didn't in this one. Wound up going with Armenia, which ironically it turns out starts in the last territories I conquered to fulfill my win condition in my Rome campaign.

Definitely a different experience than Rome, starting in an inland region where other factions are all around me. I've gotten defensive alliances with a couple to hopefully keep some of my borders from being threatened, and have wound up pushing north, since the last of the small factions I conquered for my first objective was an ally of Cimmeria, a slightly larger and stronger faction in that direction. All going well so far - though I have run into an annoying bug that seems to cause my troops to sometimes move to places and in formations I did not tell them to. Usually it's off to one side of where I'm ordering them to go, and in a very tight cluster facing the wrong direction. Not sure what's going on with that. Enough pause/play and re-issuing of my orders eventually gets them to listen, but it's irritating.

I have been reminded of a weird quirk of the game's mechanics though - namely that, when conquering a city, it's basically always best to just raze it, not occupy or loot. This is because while it has the highest immediate penalty to public order, the long-term penalty from local resistance is almost nil, where it's much higher with either other option, meaning razing the city actually results in the least public order penalty by a wide margin after even just a couple of turns. And hey, you need to convert those buildings into your versions anyway, so who cares that you destroy them? It even gives you a decent chunk of money to start rebuilding with, where occupying the city gets you none (looting gets you the most, but has the worst net effects on public order, so it's generally more trouble than it's worth). Just a weird quirk of how the numbers work out that you're basically always going to have the happiest populace by being the most ruthless murderer you possibly could be.

[Resileaf]

I've started playing Rome 2: Total War again. After all the RPGs and action games I've been playing since the holidays, I felt like breaking things up with a strategy game. I've only played once before, as Rome, so this time I decided to play a faction that actually gets archers, since I was surprised that Rome didn't in this one. Wound up going with Armenia, which ironically it turns out starts in the last territories I conquered to fulfill my win condition in my Rome campaign.

Technically Rome does have archers, but you can only recruit them from an auxiliary camp, basically a building that lets you train units from a different culture, in specific territories. Unsurprisingly, the best place to build such a camp is in Crete to train auxiliary Cretan archers.

[Zevox]

Technically Rome does have archers, but you can only recruit them from an auxiliary camp, basically a building that lets you train units from a different culture, in specific territories. Unsurprisingly, the best place to build such a camp is in Crete to train auxiliary Cretan archers.

I don't believe I used auxiliary camps. I probably tried them once or twice in the early game, didn't see them as offering anything useful, and just stopped building them. Building slots being as precious as they are in Rome 2 I know I got picky about what I built over time, and I definitely don't recall recruiting anything from other factions' unit types.

Of course, I definitely didn't know they would vary what they allowed me to recruit based on where they were built. Might've tried building them more if I had - or, more likely, would've googled around to see if anyone had a list of what they'd recruit from each region, so I could decide where they'd be useful.

[Razade]

Been chugging away at another Tales of game. This time is Berseria. Over all enjoying the story and the cast feels well connected, there are some really good skits this time around and I'm enjoying the rather frank conversations certain teammates have had with one another. It makes them feel like an actual group of people. It was something I felt Vesparia did not do a very good job with, all the characters of that team just felt a little...flat. Going to do Zestiria after this since it's a direct sequel though I worry that, since it's older, the combat will be more rough.

Which isn't to say Berseria has great combat. It doesn't. The action points that allow you to string together seem unreasonably difficult to get the minute you lose one since that cuts your combos down and a lot of the enemies in, what I suspect is, midgame can drop one or two of your action points in a hit or two. Also not a fan of some of the stunlocks enemies can put you in but you can't put them in. Enemies that are knocked down take less damage until they stand back up but if you get combo'd you can pretty much be stunlocked to death. Not a great time. Enemies also block way too dang much, which is really frustrating since it has some knockback and you just end up having to run up and risk getting combo'd again. The combat is either really fast and spammy or a total grind, the former isn't fun because it doesn't feel like I'm actually being a good combatant and the latter doesn't feel good because I just feel like it's a waste of time. The final issue with combat is the NPCs go after whoever you're in control of and the way they've done magic basically means you're screwed if you want to try one of the casters out. Which is most of your team that isn't the main character.

[Resileaf]

I don't believe I used auxiliary camps. I probably tried them once or twice in the early game, didn't see them as offering anything useful, and just stopped building them. Building slots being as precious as they are in Rome 2 I know I got picky about what I built over time, and I definitely don't recall recruiting anything from other factions' unit types.

Of course, I definitely didn't know they would vary what they allowed me to recruit based on where they were built. Might've tried building them more if I had - or, more likely, would've googled around to see if anyone had a list of what they'd recruit from each region, so I could decide where they'd be useful

Yeah, there's a few place where auxiliary camps are worth it to train units that you yourself couldn't have. Elephants in Africa, Gallic cavalry in Gaul, hoplite spearmen in Greece, chariots in Britannia, the aforementionned Cretan archers in Crete, horse archers in the eastern steppes and deserts... The ability to augment your army with the best units of other factions makes Rome the dominating force it can be by making it incredibly flexible and able to recruit the right unit for any job.

[Sermil]

Well, looks like Epic's "free game loss leader" strategy finally paid off, at least from me.

I picked up Surviving Mars a while ago when it was free, and I've been enjoying it way more than I expected. It's a city builder -- think Tropico only with a much higher chance of suffocating. Especially in the early game, you can never quite achieve balance; if you have enough people working your hydroponic farms to feed everyone, you need more water than you have, and if you build more moisture extractors, you don't have enough power, and if you build more wind turbines, you don't have enough machine parts to keep them maintained, and if you put everyone in the machine parts factory, nobody's left to run the grocer / dining rooms / bars / art stores / casinos / infirmaries that keep your people happy, so they all quit and go back to Earth. And just when you kinda have everything in balance, a dust storm comes along and all your oxygen production shuts down and everything goes into double-maintenance-cost mode for 3 days. Fun!

Anyways, I'd played though one game to the point where I had all the techs and everything was maybe getting too easy, and even after finish one playthrough, I just wanted to play another round. So I went ahead and bought a couple of expansions (Green Planet, which got very highly recommended, and also Colony Design Kit). I think that's the first money Epic has actually gotten off me, but... I guess it worked! No regrets so far.

[Thomas Cardew]

Well, looks like Epic's "free game loss leader" strategy finally paid off, at least from me.

I mean for a given value of paid off maybe. But overall, they are very much in the hole. We'll see how it long they can either keep up the loses or if Steam starts innovating in new ways.

Tangentially related, Steam's library sharing is infuriating. I'm not sure when/if they changed but I remember it working differently. It only lets them use it if you aren't playing any game from your library. My brother wants to try Thief? I can't be playing anything else. I swear that previously, it would let other family members/trusted accounts play your games if you weren't using them. I could be playing Skyrim while he dabbled in Thief. I don't mind not being able to run 2 copies of the same game at the same time, makes perfect sense. I HIGHLY mind not being able to run 2 DIFFERENT games from my collection on different computers.

All the more reason to just wait and buy whatever I want/can on GOG.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Just went through Furi another two times, after giving up on the Furier difficulty's bullet hell finales as beyond me. God damn do I hate The Burst; her mechanics all seem designed to frustrate and delay rather than to genuinely challenge, up until her last phase or two, which are legitimately difficult (even having played them many times now) and have a good chance of killing you and making you go through the whole damn fight again. That said, I've finally got her patterns down now, and beat her on my first try in the second playthrough.

There, almost all of my deaths came from the next fight, with the oar swordsman whose name I forget. That didn't bother me so much, though, because a) it's an extremely fast fight, so it didn't feel like it was wasting my time, and b) it felt much more fair; even his ability to switch up his patterns felt reasonable from an opponent as skilled as he's supposed to be. Charging up your blade with the right analog stick is a one-hit kill in the first three phases if you can land that hit without taking one yourself first (I mostly did it in the first two, and played the 3rd phase more traditionally), and I finally figured out how to semi-reliably make it through the barrage of fire attacks in his final phase without taking a hit (starting in the middle of the stage lets you back up throughout; that extra little bit is crucial).

[Sermil]

I mean for a given value of paid off maybe. But overall, they are very much in the hole. We'll see how it long they can either keep up the loses or if Steam starts innovating in new ways.

Well, I just said it might have paid off with respect to me, not overall. Depending on how much they pay the original creator when I grab a free game, of course -- they might still be in the hole if each free game cost them a dollar, or even half a dollar.

Got RingFit Adventure for Easter.
It's surprisingly fun considering it's a (not even) thinly veiled attempt at making you exercise.
And it works.
Punching monsters? Great.
Exercising? Meh.
Punching monsters by exercising at them? Absolutely priceless.

Oh, yay. Playing Ring Fit Adventure as well; it's basically the only exercise I've had for the last year, since long walks feel dangerous and the gym is right out.

Pretty much the same reason -- I hate exercise and the only way I can manage to force myself is to distract myself with pretty graphics. Another thing that works well is playing a handheld on the treadmill -- I think I played more of Persona 4 Golden on a treadmill or elliptical than actually sitting down.

Anyways, Ring Fit Adventure: the style is very Mario / Nintendo; all the names are very on-the-nose, everyone tells you exactly what they want you to do next, the colors are all bright primaries except when they're dark purples to tell you the bad guy is around.

For an action-RPG standpoint, it's a fun enough journey, but there isn't a lot of challenge to the battles -- or, rather, the challenge is mostly about the exercises. The one time I came really close to losing a battle was when I was facing a bunch of crates flying towards me, and I had to aim-and-squeeze a bunch of air blasts to destroy the crates before they hit me, and about the middle of the battle... I just could not do it. Just could not force my arms to squeeze the ring-con another time. Got absolutely pummeled on that one.

Also in the tradition of (recent) Mario games, the side challenges can be much harder than the main quest. There's a few I've just given up on because the timing is very exact or what-have-you. Been pretty proud of myself for beating some others.

Definitely worth checking out if you need some exercise. It's a real workout, and a lot more fun than the old Wii Fit games -- there's an actual game there. The in-game counter says I've played for 96 days so far, so it's certainly gotten me to stick with it.

[Anonymouswizard]

So I finished Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse. That final boss is annoying mainly because of his one attack (that he's scripted to use at least once) that drops your HP to one and saps a good chunk of MP while hitting the entire team. Even his perfectly successful instant death attack wasn't as annoying. Sadly while fighting him on normal was a massive challenge for my slightly underlevelled self (level 92 with a team of demons in the 80s) switching the difficulty to easy made none of his damaging attacks actually strong enough to be worthwhile (especially with Angel for Luster Candy making Naverre practically obsolete and Asahi for healing and free smirks).

So I've gone back to Strange Journey Redux, and have beaten both Antilles and Bootes. The game is much more enjoyable, although given how large dungeons are now I'm having some trouble with MP management (although nabbing the +HP while walking subapp has helped a little, and I'm hoping there's a +MP one later on,). Sector Carina is shaping up to be relatively enjoyable though, if big.

Strangely I'm not fusing demons as much as I thought I'd be. Many times I'll go to the fusion app and select a demon, only to go through the possible results and see that the one I want is still several levels ahead of me. Still it hasn't hurt my ability to fight much, I'm still at the point of the game where demons level up relatively fast, and I've got most of my bases covered (although still nobody with a +defence skill).

Mithras was annoying though, having multiple ways to take out some of my demons with one hit. Still, I managed to beat him without using demon Co-Ops due to his long it took me to uncover hours weakness.

[Eldan]

Getting a bit burned out on Fights in Tight Spaces as my "I have ten minutes" game (managed to get to World Four: Mafia Edition, but never to the boss there), but got into Cultist Simulator instead.

Took about three minutes before I had to Google if it was an Alexis Kennedy game. Of course it is. Though so far, definitely seems more mechanically polished than either Sunless Sea or Fallen London. I mean, my first character died and I felt like I hadn't figured out even half of what I was doing, but so far, my second character had a totally different start with an entirely different Story, which makes replaying a lot less frustrating than, say, Sunless Sea, where all your early game content is identical walls of text.

[Cespenar]

Took about three minutes before I had to Google if it was an Alexis Kennedy game. Of course it is. Though so far, definitely seems more mechanically polished than either Sunless Sea or Fallen London. I mean, my first character died and I felt like I hadn't figured out even half of what I was doing, but so far, my second character had a totally different start with an entirely different Story, which makes replaying a lot less frustrating than, say, Sunless Sea, where all your early game content is identical walls of text.

It was less boring for me as well compared to Sea/Skies, since the travel times and the back and forths were atrocious in those. Cultist Sim has its own share of "quirks", sure, but I found it overall more playable.

Still, I had to open up the wiki after my first "normal" win, I think, because I can't spend my whole life decrypting the developer's arbitrary recipes in order to just upgrade one item.

[factotum]

Finished New Vegas for, I think, the third time? 185 hours in total in Steam. I know I've gone with Mr. House once and NCR twice--I should probably buckle down at some point and do a "Be the most hated" run by siding with the Powder Gangers etc. and joining the Legion, but I'm not sure I could handle being that nasty to everyone. Wouldn't mind giving Fallout 4 a go on that downstairs PC attached to the TV, but I don't think the GT710 graphics it currently has would cut it for that game!

I did install Katamari Damacy: Reroll which has been on my Steam library for a while and played through the first couple of levels. Kind of annoying that it doesn't allow you to set the audio volume or graphics settings until after you've already played through the first level, though. Not sure what to think of the game itself yet, think I need a few more levels to decide.

[Triaxx]

I find myself ALWAYS doing Independant because I can't bring myself to kill the BOS and House and NCR both demand it.