What game are you currently playing?

[Antimatter]

I finally decided to play Inscryption. I've had this game for a long time after it became popular in 2021. Another indie hit for me to try and enjoy. So far, it's a deckbuilding roguelike with a very appealing visual style and dark setting, inspired by Slavic folklore. Even while roguelikes are usually not my genre, there are exclusions. This game is not for roguelike fans solely, it's good for everyone, just because of how unique it feels. It has a story, and your cards have ... personality (yes!). I'm in love with my Stoat card.

I also know there will be a huge surprise later in the game (mostly why the game became popular), but I've managed to keep myself from spoiling the knowledge, so I'm looking forward to that.

 

[Chronicler]

Finished that Final Fantasy 5 run. I was getting pretty fed up towards the end and rushed through a lot of that final chapter.

New team seems more fun to play with. Got Knight/Chemist/Ranger/Samurai this time. Very Martial heavy crew, but with the chemist there to provide just about every magic effect you could ask for, as long as you use the right consumable. Two Handed Katana Crits are pretty immediately proving to be a good time.

 

[WarChiefZeke]

I finally decided to play Inscryption. I've had this game for a long time after it became popular in 2021. Another indie hit for me to try and enjoy. So far, it's a deckbuilding roguelike with a very appealing visual style and dark setting, inspired by Slavic folklore. Even while roguelikes are usually not my genre, there are exclusions. This game is not for roguelike fans solely, it's good for everyone, just because of how unique it feels. It has a story, and your cards have ... personality (yes!). I'm in love with my Stoat card.

View attachment 6921

I also know there will be a huge surprise later in the game (mostly why the game became popular), but I've managed to keep myself from spoiling the knowledge, so I'm looking forward to that.

View attachment 6922

I hope you have a good time with this one! Inscryption is one of my favorite rouguelikes to come out in a long time.

The powerful combinations you can create are many, and varied, and it is a lot of fun to figure out how to humble Leshy time and again.

Chapter 2 of the story is painful to me, because it is so good, and so short, and there are lots of gameboy card games just like it, but none quite as good. I want a full length game just based on Chapter 2.

 

[WarChiefZeke]

Oblivion is known for being overly balanced to the point of not being fun, requiring a lot of optimization and metagaming to stay relevant, and I don't think any of the mods fix it quite right, so i'm not using them. I am going to break it on my own using one skill- Alchemy.

The Bosmer of Valenwood are best suited to this job, and their natural agility and skill with a bow making them master poisoners and stealth shooters. That's right, we're playing Oblivion like it's Skyrim.

So far this run has been a breeze, I am making insane amounts of money off of mass producing potions, which caused my alchemy skill to skyrocket, which caused my potions to be insanely potent for my level.

I am glad to say I have solved the HP sponge problem organically, using in game methods and no online guides. Considering this was always my hurdle towards beating it or playing it in depth at all, I am enjoying it.

 

[Chronicler]

Normally, I'm anti autobattling in all its forms. If the battle system was fun you wouldn't want to automate it.

After this last run I've kind of come around on the Pixel Remaster autobattling though. It works because it's so stupid, if that makes sense. The autobattling doesn't make any decisions for you. It just repeats your last action over and over again until you tell it to stop. You can basically "program" it by having everybody take the action you want the autobattle to do, and then turn it on, and watch your last action loop over and over again. In this respect it's more akin to something like the Baldur's Gate Scripts, or the Dragon Age Tactics, as a set of commands you basically input beforehand so that you can take your hands off the steering wheel later.

That being said, I think there's a lot that genuinely is more fun, engaging, and memorable if play the game manually. And it does seem kind of cheesy in a couple places where the computer has frame perfect input time. Like the Knight has a "Guard" command, which allows it to completely nullify physical damage, which combines well with its "Cover" passive, which takes attacks for party members with low hp. You can basically allow your low hp party member to attack with impunity while your knight protects them, as long as the enemy only uses physical attacks.

The thing is, when you're playing manually, every time the knight's turn ends, it is vulnerable to physical damage until you tell it to guard again. But when autobattling, there is no downtime. It will instantaneously re-input the guard command as soon as the knight's turn comes up, leaving no opening for attack.

In a normal battle there's a lot that happens just because you got confused about whose turn it was or your clumsy human fingers pushed the wrong button or you took too long to make a decision, but the computer will repeat its simple loop flawlessly, and that in some contexts does kind of become more powerful than if you were to try to apply your human intelligence to the situation as it develops.

Edit: Sorry, I got off track. The takeaway was that I kind of like this game's Autobattling for certain things and am gonna use it a bit more going forward.

 

[Nimran]

So my squirrel-sized attention span kicked in, and now I’m on a Battletech high. Been playing Mechwarrior 5 and HBS’ Battletech.

 

[Antimatter]

Started Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth yesterday. Looking forward to seeing how the game improves on the previous title, Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I enjoyed that game a lot. About 10 hours in, really feeling as if I'm playing an anime/kdrama but with my input, and with serious tones mixed with humour. The main character is 40+ years old, very likable. Japanese VO is so cool!

Have a look at this video (only 4 mins) to see a glimpse of what tone the game has:

 

[Xzarloxara]

I decided to take another run at the Mass Effect (LE) series. This time I will use some mods to alter that abysmally bad ending to ME3. I will play as an engineer so I can hopefully pick up the few remaining achievements I haven't gotten yet.

 

[Cahir]

I decided to take another run at the Mass Effect (LE) series. This time I will use some mods to alter that abysmally bad ending to ME3. I will play as an engineer so I can hopefully pick up the few remaining achievements I haven't gotten yet.

A good choice to use mods. ME Legendary was one of those games I played heavily modded, including some mods that altered ME3 ending. Now, I don't know how original ending looks like (using mods was preemptive decision), but modded ending was very satisfying.

 

[Xzarloxara]

A good choice to use mods. ME Legendary was one of those games I played heavily modded, including some mods that altered ME3 ending. Now, I don't know how original ending looks like (using mods was preemptive decision), but modded ending was very satisfying.

Yes, I remember you said that, which is part of what inspired me to mod the ending.

 

[Cahir]

Yes, I remember you said that, which is part of what inspired me to mod the ending.

Since I haven't seen original ending, I can't say how much better it was, but it felt very satisfying. Based on general opinion about original ending, it must have been a big improvement, then.

 

[mlnevese]

The great problem of the original endings is that all your choices do not matter. You saved the AI and they became your friends? "Good" ending will destroy them and all AI in the Galaxy, including your crew AI...

 

[Chronicler]

I'd heard that the multiple endings are literally

Spoiler

cosmetic. Apparently there's some explosion somewhere in there, and your choices determine which of three colours the explosion is.

After three games of playing up player agency through the story decisions they just did not stick the landing when it came time to wrap it up.

The way it's described, it must've been a budget or deadline issue or something. I have to imagine they had something better planned and it just didn't pan out.

 

[O_Bruce]

Lately, I found myself playing mostly 3 games. One would be Monster Hunter World, that game is just that addicting.

The other being Baldur's Gate II. I play it much less frequently, as I don't see actual cRPGS as a type of games to play over and over again, but rather something to have a quality playthrough with. Currently, I am playing on max difficulty SCSII and the results are varied, to say the least. You know it's strange when TorGal and his lackeys are more of a challenge than the Unseeing Eye. And mages are the bane of my existence, especially randomly spawned litches in dungeons. Still, I am fairly sure I'll finish the playthrough eventually.

And finally, Grand Blue Fantasy Versus: Rising, the free edition. I am not in a place to buy videogames right now (due to my many expenses and relatively small income) so a free version of the game with rotating roster of character works for me in terms of playing with my uni friend. This is where I began to really appreciate the simplified imputs for special moves, it allows me to focus on the actual fighting mechanics and machups, rather than battling against my own inputs. It might be noobish, but at this point in my life I don't care much. The characters are interesting to look at and to play as, and the gameplay is enjoyable when you get the hang of the general pacing.

 

[Xzarloxara]

I'd heard that the multiple endings are literally

Spoiler

cosmetic. Apparently there's some explosion somewhere in there, and your choices determine which of three colours the explosion is.

After three games of playing up player agency through the story decisions they just did not stick the landing when it came time to wrap it up.

The way it's described, it must've been a budget or deadline issue or something. I have to imagine they had something better planned and it just didn't pan out.

Hah! I think whoever told you this was making a bit of a sarcastic joke. This description of the multiple endings may be a bit over simplified, but all the choices are so bizarre or bad that it may as well come down to this. I don't remember all the choices exactly, but they were all very dumb and decidedly unhappy. May as well go for whichever color you like best...

As for how this dumb ending came about... @Antimatter told me everything I know... I don't remember all the details other than that one person wrote the ending in one night and stuck it in the game, apparently without much thought...

 

[Antimatter]

Sure, it was (imho) terribly handled.

BioWare Writer Speaks Out About 'Mass Effect 3' Ending... Maybe

BioWare writer Patrick Weekes allegedly posted an opinionated message about the 'Mass Effect 3' writing team's lack of involvement with the game's ending.

gamerant.com

Read more about it here:

Mass Effect 3 ending controversy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Cahir]

Well, recently I did something I usually don't do. Started to play several games at the same time and switching from one to other, according to my mood or the level of weariness. Currently, I have the following games started:

• Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader
• Control
• Cyberpunk 2077 (2nd playthrough, with the intention to play Phantom Liberty for the first time)
• The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition
• Baldur's Gate 3: (2nd playthrough with the Dark Urge)

My top priorities are Rogue Trader and CP2077. I hope I'll be able to finish them both.

 

[BelgarathMTH]

I'm currently going on a nostalgia trip through the mid-90's games that let me find my joy in life through gaming. That means starting with Dark Wizard, then Heroes of Might and Magic 1, then Heroes of Might and Magic 2: Price of Loyalty.

@Urdnot_Wrex , I know I've consulted you before on this. One of my greatest joys in Homm 2 is the music, and from that, the German lyrics to the opera soundtracks there. The lyrics are all from the German Lutheran Bible. I wonder if you might take a moment to listen to the track for the Warlock's castle, (which many speculate should have been the necromancer's castle, and that the two tracks were mixed up in post-production), and give me any insight into the lyrics?

The verse being sung is:
Denn es wird die Posaune schallen
Und die Toten werden auferstehen
Unverweslich
Und wir werden verwandelt werden

This is the track:

Doesn't the instrumental accompaniment remind you of Wagner? It gives me Wagnerian vibes.

The one you helped me with before was the Sorceress track, and I was lost on that one until you confirmed for me that the Homm2 singers sadly mangle their German pronunciation. The main hangup for me with her theme, was that the singer pronounces "Preis" as "Preece", so I thought she was singing in English and saying "Peace", but it should have been pronounced "Price", and it means "Glory" in the intended context. She also pronounces "Ehre" more like "Ay-reh" than the "Eh-reh" I would expect from my German voice minor diction training, so I used to think she was singing "today". I think she mangles a lot of the other words, sadly, like saying "Beast" for "bist".

Herr, du bist würdig, zu nehmen Preis und Ehre und Kraft;

Just to make a complete post, there is also a quote from the German Lutheran Bible on the Barbarian track, and that one I think has at least a bit better diction. This one is once again from the epistles of Paul:

Wo ist dein Sieg? Wo ist dein Stachel? Wo ist dein Sieg? Der Tod ist verschlungen in den Sieg. Tod, wo ist dein Stachel? Hölle, wo ist dein Sieg?

And just for fun, because I'm currently just a wee bit "feuergetrunken", I'll quote the Schiller/Beethoven verse from the Ninth Symphony that inspired me to devote a huge fraction of my years in college to the study of German language:

Freude, schoener Gotterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuergetrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!

 

[Antimatter]

Finally, I killed one. It wasn't easy. The hunt lasted about 2 in-game days. At night, there was almost no visibility, so I basically had to wander around in the darkness waiting for the creature to attack me. But the Prawn Suit is extremely tough, every time the Reaper grabbed me, I used the Drill Arm to screw up his face. Then, as he swam away, I exited the Suit and I repaired it. Rinse and repeat. I also used the Grappling Arm to catch him, so that when he tried to swim around me, he would carry me and I continued to attack him. Here he is, dead, upside down:

View attachment 5729

Quite the beast. The only problem is that these creatures don't respawn, and there's only 25 Reaper Leviathans in the entire game (now there's 24 in my session...). I don't want to kill the other ones. One of them had to die because I needed to teach them a lesson for destroying my Seamoth submarine. But I'll leave the other ones alone. In fact, following a YouTube video that I saw, I'm going to build an Observatory for watching them in their natural habitat, equipped with everything from a living quarters to a cafeteria. A small conservation effort on my part for taking the life of one of them.

Good news finally arrived regarding Subnautica 2.

Subnautica 2 Devs Quickly Clarify That, No, It's Not A Live-Service Thing

Everyone can calm down, the underwater survival game sequel isn’t adding battle passes

kotaku.com

 

[WarChiefZeke]

Going through a translated version of Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. Always liked this a one a lot. Amazing how complex some of the SNES era games can be. There is an entire generation system to this one where the sons and daughters of the main characters continue the campaign...assuming they lived through to the end. And enough secrets for me to never feel comfortable without a guide, but never comfortable with one either, due to spoiling the fun