What Are You Playing 8 (2023 Reboot)

[LibraryOgre]

New thread, same as the old thread. Please, just don't be jerks.

I'm probably going to drop off of DOA. I just... don't feel like it.

I'm trying to do more Civ6, because I can do it while bored, but I'm also just staring at it. I've got hundreds of games in my library and nothing looks interesting. Bleh.

[Cygnia]

Slowly moving in Myst Masterpiece Edition, per my husband's suggestion.

I can see why it was a Big Deal when it first came out, but it's not just doing it for me.

[Resileaf]

New thread, same as the old thread. Please, just don't be jerks.

I'm probably going to drop off of DOA. I just... don't feel like it.

I'm trying to do more Civ6, because I can do it while bored, but I'm also just staring at it. I've got hundreds of games in my library and nothing looks interesting. Bleh.

The way I've resolved this is by making a list of all my games (or series, so I don't play them out of order), and get a random number generator to roll which game I would play next. It's worked well... Mostly. Except for the part where I play almost only Total War because I'm trying to complete a campaign with every faction of every game in order. >_>

[LibraryOgre]

The way I've resolved this is by making a list of all my games (or series, so I don't play them out of order), and get a random number generator to roll which game I would play next. It's worked well... Mostly. Except for the part where I play almost only Total War because I'm trying to complete a campaign with every faction of every game in order. >_>

That's sort of what's happening in Civ6. "Ok, I beat the game as Pericles, let's try... Montezuma."

Pretty sure Victoria is straight-up murdering me, but she also declared war, and I have zero idea why.

Also, I wish Civ6 let me change default set-up. I am always going to be on Chieftain, usually playing a Huge Continents map.

[Lord Raziere]

What I did with my own steam game library is sort them into various categories and keep only a certain genre that I'm focusing on open at a time. then put any I finish into the finished games category.

while I haven't made much progress, it at least eliminates the feelings when looking at the list raw and allows me to focus and order the games to a degree.

though honestly what I think I've learned about focusing and deciding, is that often its not just one factor or issue that you can fix, but rather a process of figuring out how to reframe and develop systems of deciding things in various ways, of figuring what all the things that are making it cloudy and messy and just trying to order and work on aspects of the problem so that you manage it better. things like figuring how to make a decision between 10 things rather than 100 things, then 2 things rather than 10 things. things like that. a lot of simplifying something from a tangle of stuff into steps you can take, sections of this and that.

[Cespenar]

@Dredge: Pretty much what Eldan said. Solid atmosphere and mechanics and fun for a few hours. Somewhat sadly, the main loop seems to be designed to be grind-ed and last for many many more hours. But it's fine if you go into it without the intention to finish.

Slowly moving in Myst Masterpiece Edition, per my husband's suggestion.

I can see why it was a Big Deal when it first came out, but it's not just doing it for me.

Tried to get into that a couple months ago myself, but nah. Too much running back and forth in this day and age. I would play it to heck back in 90s, though.

[warty goblin]

My method is to play something for like 4 hours, then just stop because the probability of having to spend five minutes watching some awful cutscene or other boring nonsense gets way, way too high. Or it's first thing in the morning and the next thing is a (probably awful) boss fight, or I'm just blah about doing that game's loop yet again. Then I stop playing, and, even though I like the game, never pick it up again.

Then I go back to Warships because there aren't any cutscenes, zero boss fights (hence zero awful boss fights and most boss fight are awful) and I'm pretty much guaranteed at least an OK time.

I'm trying to get more efficient, and just not buy the other game in the first place.

[tyckspoon]

Switched my BATTLETECH install from the Extended mod to BATTLETECH Advanced 3062. First mission I tried to go on I was hiding in a forest, got set on fire, and had the mech's ammo bins explode due to heat checks while trying to walk out of the fire. Gonna take a bit to get used to caring about all the actual tabletop rules again.

[Batcathat]

Slowly moving in Myst Masterpiece Edition, per my husband's suggestion.

I can see why it was a Big Deal when it first came out, but it's not just doing it for me.

I used to love Myst as a kid, but I think I was too young to really understand what was going on and mostly went around solving puzzles at random. I doubt I ever came close to finishing it, it might be fun giving it a try as an adult.

[Cygnia]

I'm about halfway through -- but it's coming across to me that the designer seemed far too enamoured with his own perceived cleverness with some of these puzzles.

[Gnoman]

Because I have (temporary) limited use of my left hand, I've been sinking a ton of time into OpenXcom lately. Specifically, the Xpiratez mod (which, I should mention, is rather obnoxiously NSFW in the art, but has very clever and intricate gameplay expansion). Six months into the game, I can finally shoot things down instead of relying on assaulting landed ships and pop-up sites. Which sounds absurd, but you need extremely heavy research to get any kind of armed craft and the ability to supply it with ammunition.

[Anonymouswizard]

So what I'm getting from other people is that Cyberpunk is a game that stuffers from it scope? Sounds about right, but man is this atmosphere awesome.

It does hit a bugbear for me though, and that's timed dialogue choices that don't give me enough time to read them.

[Rynjin]

Yeah, that sounds about accurate. All of the curated content, including most of the side quests (the true sidequests, not the busywork) is genuinely excellent in terms of writing, and is overall fun.

But if the game were a more linear experience akin to a Deus Ex game (which is open world, but everything involving a quest is clearly very cleverly crafted to allow multiple approaches) it'd be even better.

The gameplay suffers from being a "true" open world in most cases. Your differing approaches don't matter much, because there's no consequences for failing a specific type of gameplay. Stealth is meaningless both because the mechanics for it are wonky (so it doesn't feel rewarding to do) and because the consequence is just "and now you fight" rather than something more interesting like "and now you fail this optional objective". Hacking is similar in that hacking is very good...but only in the most direct, brute force sense. There's not really much call for finesse in the game because accounting for that in a true open world would be difficult.

The only time it really matters is in some of the main quests that take place in a very curated locale with multiple approaches, but those are relatively few and far between compared to quests that take place in an open location that other quests might interact with later.

[Zevox]

So after running through Banjo I decided that, while I've got my 360 out, I'd play through a couple of games I only have on that which I haven't in a long time. The first of which was Batman: Arkham Asylum.

In most regards, Arkham Asylum holds up pretty darn well. They really nailed the combat on the first outing for the series, it genuinely feels great pretty much immediately - which really makes it that much sadder for me to remember how Gotham Knights managed to mess that up. But yeah, punching dudes, countering them, using the few gadgets that had combat uses in this one, building up for the instant-KO takedown techniques and using those, it all just feels good to do, and all happens at a quick and engaging pace. Exploration is also really solid, detective mode is well-handled, and figuring things out with the tools you have is fun, even if there's less variety to what you're doing than in later games. I also personally like the level design better than in later games, simply because it's smaller and more focused, not the more open-world style that City and onward went with (even if I've never been as bothered with that in those as in a lot of other open world games). I actually went and found all of the Riddler's trophies and solved all his riddles in this one, simply because it felt a lot more manageable and less repetitive in a game of this size and scope compared with its sequels. And the story, while simple, works pretty well - and who doesn't love something where you get to hear Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill playing Batman and Joker again?

That said, there are a few criticisms I can give - some just as applicable when it released as now, some more a matter of how it has aged. For the former, the one major gameplay thing that was clearly not as polished yet is the mobility. While it's mostly fine just exploring, you really notice it feeling kind of clunky when you need to run after an enemy in a fight, like when you dodge a titan minion's charge. Transitioning from walking to running is just strangely delayed, and you don't feel like you have great control over your position during a fight because of the mix of that and the overall slow walk speed. There's also a bit of such clunkiness when transitioning into the glide animation, which can trip you up during stealth segments at times. And beyond that, the boss fights are pretty unimpressive in this one. There's basically only three: Bane early on, and Poison Ivy and the Joker right at the end. Bane's is very basic and basically turns out to be training for dealing with the titan minions later; Poison Ivy's is fine, but gets a touch too repetitive, and generally isn't as fun as the rest of the game; and the final fight with Joker is just kind of sad. You dodge his attacks a few times, then he jumps up on a ledge to mug at some helicopters while you fight his goons, which are just regular enemies. Once you've KOed all the goons, you use the batclaw to pull him down, then punch him a few times. Repeat thrice and he's done. So it's mostly a fight with his goons, really, since they won't let you actually do anything to him during the brief periods where he's trying to fight you directly. Not the best note to end the game on. This is definitely an area I know they improved massively in later games though, as I recall Arkham City having some truly great boss fights (particularly Mr. Freeze and Ras Al'Ghul).

The game also doesn't handle Harley Quinn great. This was the first time she started dressing like a stripper instead of a jester (or maybe the comics did that first and this was just the first time I saw her in such an outfit, but it's definitely a first for her in video games anyway), so that kind of stinks out of the gate. Then they don't even give her a boss fight despite her being treated as Joker's right hand woman, just having Batman handily dispatch her and trap her in a prison cell in a cutscene when they finally have a direct encounter. And then you find the tapes of her therapy sessions with Joker that are supposed to be when she turned from a well-meaning psychiatrist into, well, what she is, and she just comes across as pretty dim-witted in them, immediately falling for the most transparent lies and flattery ever. Again, something the series improved on quite a bit later, IIRC.

As for what didn't age well, it's the visuals, unsurprisingly. Not that the game looks bad, but you can definitely tell it's from two generations ago even at a glance. And the biggest thing is that it also is obviously from before motion capture was widely used in such games, because characters often have these unnatural, jerky movements to them, especially during simple conversations. Batman himself mostly works fine, since he's supposed to be the stoic sort, so him not moving much is entirely normal, but everybody else wants to gesture in some way while talking, and it gets a tad distracting how weird the animations for that are.

Still, all of those are small potatoes compared to what the game did very right - it's still a solid, fun time today.

Thinking of doing a Dragon Age game next, since I have the 360 versions of those. Just need to decide between Origins and 2.

[Eldan]

There were really a lot of things I liked about Cyberpunk. The city is just awesome. Just getting on a motorbike and driving around and looking at the different districts... I loved that. Now, it also has serious problems, and a lot of the gameplay is very "meh", sometimes the game forgets its own themes (why am I, as a Cyberpunk, constantly getting missions from cops to beat up small-time street gangsters?) and the open world really doesn't function well in a lot of cases (You can run away from almost any problem, enemies don't really use cars or motorcycles), but the setting just works for me. And the campaign hits a few genuinely emotional notes later on, that really work for me. Especially if you're deep in one of the romances.

[Mx.Silver]

On topic: since the weather has turned my vacation into a gaming vacation I'm picking up the next game. After Scorn I need something with more, well, text. So... it's Technobabylon.
I have rather high expectations. For one, I'm a sucker for this style of neon-cyberpunk setting. Furthermore that game has received pretty high praise with some calling it the best point-and-click adventure in recent years*.

*with a fairly lenient definition of "recent" - is 2015 really 8 years ago?

Look, when you're the average age of P&CA players, 8 years doesn't seem that long


Speaking of point & clicks, I've played 3 since last time.

First was Whispers of a Machine, which is alright. It feels like it had a bit of a problem with 'scope creep', or maybe just 'wanting to be Deus Ex', the stakes of the ending are a bit out of step with the 'small town murder mystery' style the earlier parts of the game had and the 'personality bars + mutually exclusive upgrade paths' are a bit more than the game really has space to deal with. It's not just that there isn't much underlying logic to it (e.g. being very by-the-book eventually grants invisibility, for some reason), but also the way puzzles on the later days have to be designed around all of the potentialy upgrades leads to a the default tools you have being rather underutilised. The final Big Decision at the ending also feels a bit half-baked imo.
It's not a bad game, just one that feels like it could have used another pass in the planning stages.

Second was Virtuaverse, which was the weakest of the bunch. It sells itself on being an 'oldschool' adventure game, which it is, although in some ways not in it's favour. While it does have a few amusingly moon logic puzzle solutions in it, and lacks the cheap deaths common of Sierra's heyday, it does nonetheless have a number of things that veer more into just 'wasting the player's time', plus it is very possible to get soft-locked if you didn't do enough pixel-hunting around the screens in the first half of the game. While the game does offer an 'easy mode' play option with a lot this toned down, the game's story just isn't very compelling on its own. If you're a big fan of Master Boot Record I dunno, maybe that's enough to be worth it. Otherwise, if you really want an oldschool 'cyberwierd' adventure game, Beneath a Steel Sky is being given away for free on GOG.

The last game I played was Norco, a game that's been developing a bit of a reputation as an 'indie darling' as of late. And yeah, it's good. Very good, honestly. Might be a little front-loaded in terms of narrative punches (some of the early mindmapsabout Kay's relationship with her family is some very 'paint a portrait of dysfunctional emotional collapse in under 10 words' kind of stuff) but it's a solid performer throughout. The ending(s) are kind of interestingly constructed, in that while it's not that difficult to end-up with the "best" ending (mostly depends on what optional stuff you've done before then, all of which is the sort of thing I just did anyway without any foreknowledge) due to how its structured you kind of end-up seeing what most of that would be like beforehand anyway.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah, that sounds about accurate. All of the curated content, including most of the side quests (the true sidequests, not the busywork) is genuinely excellent in terms of writing, and is overall fun.

But if the game were a more linear experience akin to a Deus Ex game (which is open world, but everything involving a quest is clearly very cleverly crafted to allow multiple approaches) it'd be even better.

The gameplay suffers from being a "true" open world in most cases. Your differing approaches don't matter much, because there's no consequences for failing a specific type of gameplay. Stealth is meaningless both because the mechanics for it are wonky (so it doesn't feel rewarding to do) and because the consequence is just "and now you fight" rather than something more interesting like "and now you fail this optional objective". Hacking is similar in that hacking is very good...but only in the most direct, brute force sense. There's not really much call for finesse in the game because accounting for that in a true open world would be difficult.

The only time it really matters is in some of the main quests that take place in a very curated locale with multiple approaches, but those are relatively few and far between compared to quests that take place in an open location that other quests might interact with later.

I am very much beginning to feel like open worlds only truly work in games like Saints Row which are meant to be consequence free sandboxes. Everything else could probably do with returning to a linear structure, even if only to put pacing more under the designers' control.

Like, it's not a bad game, but it's clear it could have been a lot better.

There were really a lot of things I liked about Cyberpunk. The city is just awesome. Just getting on a motorbike and driving around and looking at the different districts... I loved that. Now, it also has serious problems, and a lot of the gameplay is very "meh", sometimes the game forgets its own themes (why am I, as a Cyberpunk, constantly getting missions from cops to beat up small-time street gangsters?) and the open world really doesn't function well in a lot of cases (You can run away from almost any problem, enemies don't really use cars or motorcycles), but the setting just works for me. And the campaign hits a few genuinely emotional notes later on, that really work for me. Especially if you're deep in one of the romances.

I'm still very much enjoying the game, but that's more about me liking cyberpunk than the game itself. I have issues, part of which includes saddling you with a pretty hefty debt at a point in the game where you're just not going to have that kind of cash for a while (I'm about halfway there only because I failed to get a quest's less violent solution. It makes me really reluctant to go to other ripperdocs and get more crome in a cyberpunk game. Come on game, mamma needs herself a new pair of arms...

I'm certainly planning to avoid the busywork, like I always do in open world games, and stick to actual quests. It's just a bit slow going in the money department, especially with scrapping a lot of spare gear for parts instead of just selling it.

Anyway, nearly at the first big heist. Only mission I've got left that isn't 'very high' so wish me luck.

Thinking of doing a Dragon Age game next, since I have the 360 versions of those. Just need to decide between Origins and 2.

The Dragon Age fan in me insists that if you're not playing the first two on PC you're not doing it right.

[NeoVid]

I'm currently obsessed with Shadows of Forbidden Gods a grand strategy game about spreading cults and driving world leaders insane to release a lovecraftian god. It's great!

I love genre inversions, so this is one I have to take a look at. Has anyone heard of the last game I played along those lines, Ruinarch? It's one of those town simulator games where all of the residents have unique traits, motivations and skills... except you're playing as a demon working to torment and sabotage the town.

[MCerberus]

Playing edgy dwarfs in WH3. Real surprise early game is their short-range gunpowder units interacting with cavalry and monsters early game. Just surround them with prisoners with jobs (thank you, Jeff Goldblum) and watch them melt amongst the statistically acceptable workforce downsizing. Best so far was watching 2 units of blunderbusses and a ranged hero just freaking wreck Kholek Suneater. Grimgore's next, but I want some choo choo trains first.

If you're not familiar with chaos dwarves, their choo choo trains are not wholesome.

[Aa602213x1023]

Also, I wish Civ6 let me change default set-up. I am always going to be on Chieftain, usually playing a Huge Continents map.

You should be able to save a game configuration on the advanced setup screen and then reload it for future games.

[Form]

There were really a lot of things I liked about Cyberpunk. The city is just awesome. Just getting on a motorbike and driving around and looking at the different districts... I loved that. Now, it also has serious problems, and a lot of the gameplay is very "meh", sometimes the game forgets its own themes (why am I, as a Cyberpunk, constantly getting missions from cops to beat up small-time street gangsters?) and the open world really doesn't function well in a lot of cases (You can run away from almost any problem, enemies don't really use cars or motorcycles), but the setting just works for me. And the campaign hits a few genuinely emotional notes later on, that really work for me. Especially if you're deep in one of the romances.

I too would have appreciated a few more missions that would allow me to stick it to The Man, instead of doing The Man's bidding.

Spoiler: Anyway, I've finished Dredge

Show

... and summoned the eldritch abomination from the deep. I regret nothing! As long as my wife's back, the rest of the world can burn.

I've been having a lot of fun with Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous too. So far everything's been going fairly well and I've even dared to increase the difficulty to daring, although I have set it so that companions don't actually die during combat, but just fall unconscious. Because let's be honest: I'm just going to save scum anyway and this saves me some busywork. It probably helps that I do have some familiarity with pathfinder and am focusing on spells that buff the party rather than spells that hurt the enemy. I don't like enemies that can no sell my spells because of spell resistance or high saves.

[GloatingSwine]

(why am I, as a Cyberpunk, constantly getting missions from cops to beat up small-time street gangsters?)

Because we've scrapped the whole game and started over three times already and we need some content dammit!

[Anonymouswizard]

Because we've scrapped the whole game and started over three times already and we need some content dammit!

Honestly you'd think people working at a video game company would have plenty of inspiration for a cyberpunk game Although honestly I wouldn't question it as much in modern cyberpunk, it's just that the tabletop RPG is very 90s.

Well 2020 is, I don't own the new edition. I bet the artwork is worse anyway.

[Kraufen]

Nexus Clash. Also digimon survive

[Cespenar]

Minor hottake/nitpick continuation on the Cyberpunk theme: I think they should have doubled down on the corpo pillar on the balance of things, instead of the streets and desert pillars. That's what makes the genre fun IMO.

Shadowrun, for example gets that right pretty spot on.

[LibraryOgre]

You should be able to save a game configuration on the advanced setup screen and then reload it for future games.

I'll give that a shot.

Last night, I beat it as Montezuma; Culture win, actually, which I seem to do a lot (I don't have the will for a Domination victory on a huge map, or religion). I was gearing up for a science win, with my industrial powerhouse also being my spaceport and getting a great engineer which doubled production on space projects, when Brazil finally succumbed to my AWESOME culture. At one point, I know Rome had the Great General Boudica, which was cringey.

For some reason, I prefer to play Montezuma on a True Start Earth map.

I have also realized I dislike playing more modern Civs. I wanna play as Sumer or Egypt, not as the US.

[Rynjin]

Street Kid is IMO the best background because that's the part of Cyberpunk I like, but it definitely would have been nice to expand the Corpo background to be equal to the others. A sort of "the system is great because I can exploit it for my own gain" storyline to balance out the "the sytem sucks, the man keeps everyone down" and "what system? Freeedoooooom!!!" story aspects.

[warty goblin]

Gave Frogware's Sherlock Holmes Awakening remake a go this morning. The plot is going to be something something Lovecraft stuff, but the beginning is delightfully mundane, and entirely free of ominous visions or anything like that. I appreciate this, in order to have looming existential dread you have to start with the sane and explicable.

Spoiler

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The tutorial case is also a red herring, and absolutely nothing sinister is going on. Thus we start with Holmes being both paranoid and prone to seriously overfitting data. Perfect foundation for making any eldritch abominations the potential product of an overactive imagination.

It's a fairly cool detective system too, you gather information by looking at stuff and talking to people, then piece the evidence together in your mind palace to reach a conclusion. The system takes a minute to grok, but it combines player deduction with game guidance pretty effectively. It's a very talky game, but because it's a detective game the talking isn't an interminable pause in the action so much as it is the action. Also it's fairly sprightly in delivery, and doesn't beat around the bush endlessly, which always helps.

Also the entire game is level based and us supposed to run like 12 hours. What a marvelous length and structure.

[Lord Raziere]

I have also realized I dislike playing more modern Civs. I wanna play as Sumer or Egypt, not as the US.

I've played US.

got a diplomatic victory, it was pretty easy to do, just didn't fight any wars, made nice with all the leaders, and sent aid to someplace when literally no one else is doing that.

Meanwhile me playing Rome, Macedon or Norse going for a Domination victory:
CONQUER EVERYONE, BURN ALL THE CITIES THAT WON'T BE LOYAL TO ME, BUILD NEW ONES ON THEIR ASHES, MAKE A BEELINE STRAIGHT FOR THE DEATH ROBOTS ON THE TECH TREE!!

because if Civ 6 has taught me anything, conquerors don't care if they destroy a few cities to rule the world because that just means that many less cities to manage when they succeed and thus one less annoyance to deal with.

[LibraryOgre]

I've played US.

got a diplomatic victory, it was pretty easy to do, just didn't fight any wars, made nice with all the leaders, and sent aid to someplace when literally no one else is doing that.

Oh, WARS! This last playthrough was AMAZING for wars. I never declare war, but I had it declared on me like five times. EACH TIME, Victoria was one of two people declaring war on me. However, since I was pretty much North and South America (and, later, Australia and a smidge of the Middle East), they never did anything. I ended the war by sailing a couple Frigates over (and, later, battleships) and shelling London a few times. Then they'd ask for peace.

I swear, Victoria just wanted to give me money. I lost more units to barbarians than I did in wartime.