What game are you currently playing?

[Cahir]

With my limited time now, having little girl and work occupying most of it, I tried to squeeze some hours into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, to see what's all the fuzz about.

While I'm still at the very beginning of the game (just finished Prologue), I can already say this is going to be fun. I like the story and characters so far, combat is also interesting (even if difficult). The only thing that could be better, in my opinion, is exploration - specifically the fact that the game is corridor type, while looking like open world at the same time. In result, I constantly run into an invisible walls, because I think there is a passage there. The fact that most of recent games I played were open worlds probably doesn't help to swiftly switch to God of War-like exploration.

The visuals, UI, characters, music and atmosphere are all fantastic.

A yeah, so far, call me intrigued. Can't wait to dive deeper into the story.

 

[TBMx]

Currently playing games on PC:

- Dead by Daylight
- Soulstone Survivors
- Hearts of Iron 4
- People Playground
- 7 Days to Die
- Ark Survival Evolved

I have short attention span, so I play alot of games but all of the games above are my favorite by far and still play them currently to this date.

ArmorSound

 

[WarChiefZeke]

I lost my primary gaming PC sometime around two years ago, and with it, my ability to access most of my VR titles. Finally a decent program exists to make Steam Deck compatible with PC-VR games. I never believed the people who said the machine couldn't handle it because many VR games require much less performance than many realize and the machine more than meets the requirements for even an expansive game like Skyrim VR.

Speaking of Skyrim VR, it runs smooth and fluidly on medium-ish settings. Before I knew it I had put 10 more hours into it. Here are the titles i've successfuly tried so far using the ALVR software to connect my Quest to the Steam Deck:

Last Labyrinth
RuinsMagus
VR Dungeon Knight (the only one to experience slowdown, despite being a very bite-sized game)
Karnage Khronicles
Skyrim VR

 

[JustKneller]

I'm in a kind of awkward gaming place right now. I have less than a month until the Steam summer sale where I'll pick up Nier;Automata and Subnautica Below Zero and will then want to get right into that. I don't really have a lot of casual/short games to hold me over until then. I've been messing around a little with Half Life 2. I finished the main game recently and started on the episodes today, but that won't last long...

 

[O_Bruce]

Right now, I am rotating between:

Baldur's Gate III
Sekiro: Shadow Die Twice
Darks Souls remastered

While Sekiro is my brother's copy (I play it via Steam family sharing), Dark Souls was given to me by my friend on my birthday this year. So far I am inclined to say I am enjoying FromSoftware games. Any FromSoft enjoyer on this forum?

 

[Cahir]

Any FromSoft enjoyer on this forum?

Nope, but you got one hater here I genuinely, legitimately hate those games. Not starting to debate about it, just wanted to share the feelings

 

[Primavera]

So far I am inclined to say I am enjoying FromSoftware games. Any FromSoft enjoyer on this forum?

Yup, big fan of all Souls and Soulslikes, it's the dark ambience of their settings that pulls me in mainly, absolutely love the worldbuilding and the environmental storytelling in those games. The gameplay can be a bit punishing but that's what gives you bigger dopamine hits when you overcome the challenges presented in them. DS3, Sekiro and Elden Ring are my favourites among the ones that FromSoft has made. I love the setting of Bloodborne even more but I'm exclusively a PC player so I haven't been able to play that yet. Nioh 2 (made by Koei Temco) is also similar but the gameplay is slightly more combo intensive, and imo, more challenging. Lies of P and Mortal Shell also get a honourable mention though they both have their own unique flavour.

Haven't been able to keep up with some of the latest soulslike releases from the last year though since the system requirements of modern games keep getting more and more demanding sadly. Maybe someday in the future.

That being said, I'm a greater fan of 2D soulslikes, they are usually quite similar to platformer metroidvanias but the combat is more intense, though often the lines can get blurred. Blasphemous, Salt and Sanctuary, The Last Faith, Ender Lilies and Magnolia are some of my favourite ones. One could even argue that Hollow Knight is a soulslike. There's a lot more of these and I like the fact that this genre has been getting more popular lately since it was quite niche at its inception. A certain part of the original community surrounding FromSoft and soulslike games can be very toxic and elitist though so it is better to just ignore those types and their delusions, but with the increasing popularity of this genre, you'd usually find more pleasant interactions among the fanbase.

Edit: Also seems like Nioh 2 is currently on sale till 23rd June.

 

[O_Bruce]

Ok, since the number of Soulslikes game fans in this forum is 2, I don't think there's much of a point in creating a separate thread for them. So I'll share my impressions from playing Dark Souls 1 here.

Right now, I am a bit over halfway through the game. First thing I want to mention - this game does not appear to me to be as hard as many people claim it is. If anything, this game requires your attention, awareness, and patience. Maybe my gaming background helps me a bit as a CRPG enthusiast and a Monster Hunter player. My experience from RPGs certainly helps me with understanding stats and making more-or-less informed decisions. Gear stat requirements? I know that from Diablo. Stat scaling? Typical thing for a CRPG. Resistances? Same thing. Meanwhile, my experience in Monster Hunter helps me a lot with combat, especially with boss battles. I-framing is a lot easier than in Monster Hunter, and with boss battles in Dark Souls being much shorter than typical hunts in Monster Hunter, there's a lot less time for me to make mistakes.

There were bosses that I won against in my first try, which surprised me a lot, including a certain duo in a sunlight-basked city. Given how much I heard about that particular fight and how much of a hell it should be, that went really well for me (granted, I had heal spell and often I ran in the boss area like a moron, until I see opening for a counterattack but hey, if that works...)

There are two other reasons why the game might be easier for me. First of all, my desire to play Dark Souls started from me finding challenge run videos interesting and entertaining. Due to this, I wasn't exactly going blind into the game. That being said, most of the game was functionally unknown to me, as those challenge videos tend to focus on boss battles more than anything else. Second, my first try at Dark Souls was a year and a half ago when I tried it at my friends' house. I nearly got to the Bell Gargoyles.

Difficulty and boss battle aside, the game is enjoyable to play for me. Ambience and setting is a good plus, as well as lore waiting to be discovered. I was surprised that even something like the environment and some item descriptions can give you hints about something not being what it seems at first glance. I like that the game does not hold my hand, lets me make mistakes and learn from them.

There are frustrating segments. There is a place that requires me to have a light source in my left hand, meaning I can't two-hand my two-handed sword, diminishing my damage potential. Even then, navigating the place is very frustrating, as often you can't see more troublesome enemies ahead of time. Earlier than that, there was a place in which getting hit by 1 dart shot from the enemy you didn't know was there resulted in a "toxic" status effect, meaning your death was only a matter of time, and all healing you can do will only prolong the inevitable. Luckily, I discovered the dart-shooters don't respawn as opposed to vast majority of enemies.

I see good replaying potential. I am currently doing a "heavy-armored swordsman" kind of build, but I can easily see me experimenting with stuff in my following playthroughts

 

[Antimatter]

That's actually very insightful. I might not be a soulslike fan, but I would enjoy such types of insights, observations, and opinions. Also, I think we have at least 3, tagging @Nimran, who mentioned Elden Ring here.

It also might happen that while someone is not interested in a particular game right now, they might still check it out in the future, hard to predict how gaming habits evolve.

 

[WarChiefZeke]

I decided to start Neverwinter Nights 2 again. Although the Enhanced Edition is coming out soon, I think the normal game is perfectly fine as-is. Especially with some minor mods to add more armor detail and an armor customization menu.

I decided to make an evil character and go through the OC and MoTB. Side with the thieves guild, betray my companions for the King of Shadows, summon the demon Mephasm and make some bargains, slaughter the Mossfeld boys, earn the title Dread Lord, you get it.

My build:

Ranger 4/Druid 7. "The Manhunter"

Deity: Malar

Favored Enemy: Humans.

Stats:
16 STR
14 DEX
12 CON
13 INT
14 WIS
10 CHA

In NWN2, Rangers get the extra special "favored power attack" ability, which doubles power attack damage to favored enemies and triples it if I use a two-handed weapon. You can get it early. This allows me to easily tear through most enemies.

With practiced spellcaster: Druid, I don't lose any spell effectiveness due to my Ranger levels. Later on I will take one more Ranger level, to add another Favored Enemy to my list and get another favored power attack feat (most likely Undead). With several lightning spells, stoneskin, and flame blade, this build proves a satisfying mix of magic and melee all the way to MoTB.

Later on, I might try some of the better modules again. I recall Tales from the Lake of Sorrows being excellent, with companions they clearly put a lot of work into.

 

[Cahir]

So, I'm still playing Clair Obscure: Expedition 33, albeit painfullly slowly because of my little star having the top priority. I will definitely write up some summary (perhaps a review of sort) of the game, but because of the heat around this game, particularly to it emerging as one of the the top contenders to GoTY prize this year, I will wait with my thoughts until I finish it. I already changed my mind a bit about the game, which grew more positive the more I play, so it would be at least doing it disservice writing a review, while I am barely at the beginning of Act 2.

After I finish Clair, my plan is to do following, before any of the games I listed in "Which games I'm looking forward to play?" will launch (the order is random, I haven't decided yet, which one I will play next:

• Picking up my female CP2077 run, to finally play Phantom Liberty
• Playing BG3 again, probably with one of the Origin characters (I'm thinking Lae'zel, Karlach or Astarion), this time with some mods (mostly cosmetic or QoL)
• Play another GoTY contender, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. (I know it is praised a lot, so I'm looking forward to see if the praise is well placed)

Since my playing time is extremely limited, I can't tell if and when any of those goals will be met, but this is the plan at list.

 

[Primavera]

I resumed my (first) Pillars of Eternity playthrough after a long hiatus (mainly playing it because I started Deadfire but then felt like I was missing a lot of the background regarding the world setting, lore and characters, even though I am not really fond of a lot of mechanics in the first game), albeit irregularly because I don't have a lot of time sadly. Reached Defiance Bay with a ranged cipher, and current party members are Eder, Aloth, Durance, Kana and Sagani. I'm thinking about picking up Pallegina because I need another frontliner and Kana hasn't been able to fill up that role quite well, as well as Hiravias because the druid spells look really solid, but I'm not sure whether to drop Durance or Sagani for him. The ranger animal companion is interesting and is really good for casting ectopsychic echo with my cipher and making it run around dealing damage, but it gets downed really fast if enemies target it, and this strategy would probably work better with another companion or maybe summons (don't know if I can cast EE on them), so right now I am not sure if I am using Sagani to her full potential (I got the faster shot modal with her too but I haven't quite noticed a big difference yet). Regarding Durance I have mainly been using his iconic projection AOE heal and maybe a debuff removing spell or two but it's been quite situational, I read though that his story is related to the main plot so I feel uncertain about dropping him. As for Kana, I'm quite perplexed as how to use him well since the lingering song effects aren't really that game changing, and by the time I get enough phrases to finally cast one of his actual spells, the fight is already over, so most of the time he is just acting as a suboptimal frontliner along with Eder and getting hammered, and I am quite sure I am playing him very wrong. My biggest problem is that his spells generate passively unlike my cipher's where I can blast one spell in the beginning and then have the charge build up again by actively damaging the enemy, so I have more agency there, and it's actually a lot faster. I have also noticed that the game prefers faster hitting options than slower heavy hitting options since I generate a lot more charge with a warbow than with a crossbow, it's really very noticeable. Same thing with armour, the damage reduction looks great on paper but it severely gimps your damage potential, and it feels like the protection is not a great tradeoff for slower attacks except on one or two dedicated tanks. Still kinda bummed about how the game handles this (and these are the times I miss the systems from BG 1/2). Though the biggest thing I hate is the fact that spells are per rest instead of per encounter unlike in Deadfire, coupled with the artificial resting limit. Installed a mod to increase the camping supplies limit just because of that. I get it that the game wants you to play frugally but I love my magic spells and I can't go without casting them (kinda the main reason I chose a cipher as an MC), so I suppose I'll just have to deal with it. That being said, I would love to have some tips, so please feel free to share any views.

 

[Antimatter]

When I played PoE with minimal reloads, I had a melee cipher with high CON and Resolve, Eder as a tank, Pallegina as a semi-tank, Durance and Aloth, and Kana. I gave Kana a long-reach weapon and upped his Might so that he effectively stood behind my melee folks and still inflicted a ton of damage. I don't think Kana can keep himself alive on the frontline. Durance and Aloth probably both just used wands, and I kept them in the back. Due to how PoE areas are made, it's usually quite easy to use choke points and keep enemies from reaching out to your non-front liners.

I think @Enuhal prefers Hiravias to Kana, but the role is the same, the biggest damage-dealing from a bit afar.

 

[Primavera]

I gave Kana a long-reach weapon and upped his Might so that he effectively stood behind my melee folks and still inflicted a ton of damage. I don't think Kana can keep himself alive on the frontline.

I can't seem to figure out how to use his class related skills though. Right now he just doesn't fit into any role and I feel like the damage dealing and engagement holding could be done with a better melee fighter. His AoE phrase bonuses are nice to have but not game changing, and his spells just don't come off fast enough to cast before the battle is over (or mostly over) so I am left with a weaker fighter instead who has no access to knockdown for breaking engagement. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong or whether the class starts off with a weaker progression than others early on. Right now I have the wave and lightning cones and the skeleton summon spell which are all quite underwhelming. I feel like if the spells charged up a bit faster or at least if it let you start the battle with one weak spell like the cipher can, it would have been more fun.

 

[WarChiefZeke]

I am waiting for the turn-based mode to be fully implemented to finish my first-ever complete run of PoE. It was announced when I was in the middle of it so I put it on hold. Turn-based mode is vastly preferable in this game, there is too much going on too fast for RTwP to be the default.

So far i've sided with the Dozens and completely did their questline. I have learned to appreciate their faction over the years.

 

[Primavera]

Spent about 3 hours playing this one (to completion) today and it was quite a mixed experience. While on the positive side, the art was really good and unique, that about seems to be the only thing going in favour of it in my opinion. The gameplay was generic point-and-click with obscure puzzle solving, well they do make sense but they aren't necessarily enjoyable or give you any sense of accomplishment on completing them, and feel more like things just cobbled together to obstruct you from experiencing the story and taking in the atmosphere, overall quite immersion-breaking. And speaking of the story, it seemed promising at first, but then it left a lot of loose ends and unexplained bits, thus making the worldbuilding not feel coherent at all, there's definitely some great ideas going on, but they end up not having much meaning eventually, there's no depth to the story or the characters either. There's a few choices you can make, some making sense while the others are weird and ambiguous, but in the end, nothing really changes much since you get one good ending if you made all the "correct" choices and otherwise get a bad ending, but the thing is that both the endings don't really have a lot of difference to them other than judging you for being confused by the entire story, which is made entirely inconsequential by the endings themselves (won't say more because of spoilers). Essentially, it turns from something that had a lot of promise at the start into a generic travel-through-purgatory-seeking-redemption plotline, judging you entirely based on conventional religious (?) principles (which often contradicted themselves for each of the different cases), and not something related to the story itself, which feels like a major disappointment because it broke the little immersion and worldbuilding that it was able to create in the first place. And the ending music was also jarring because it was some random pop metal/rock (?) song that absolutely didn't fit in with the rest of the aesthetics. Kinda feels like a waste of my Sunday time, even though the art was quite impressive. This is one of those games where it is probably better to watch a youtube playthrough if someone wants to experience it.

 

[JustKneller]

I'm bouncing between two games.

Elite Dangerous. I always avoided it because of the reputation of having a really steep learning curve. I've played space trading games before, but this is definitely more complex. However, I'm slowly getting the hang of it. In other news, I spent the better part of today driving from my place to my parents so the kids and grandparents can have some quality time. Google maps was being a jerk and not giving us the route that lets us avoid certain highways. I irritatingly thought, "Just a few hours ago, I was skimming the stars and navigating systems unknown and google can't find the right damn interstate?"

Disco Elysium. True story. I used to be an investigator (in corrections) in my career before this one. I could tell from the opening "narrative" that this game is going to try to get in my head and under my skin so I'm leaving the door wide open. I restarted and I created myself from my investigator days. Stats are 4422 and my signature skill is Inner Empire. This is going to be interesting.

 

[JustKneller]

Ok, I so I threw some Nier: Automata into the mix. Holy hell, I need more buttons or a better control scheme or something. I need WASD for movement, but arrows for facing, while controlling two attacks for myself while targeting and controlling two attacks for my drone. The game also doesn't recognize more than two buttons on my mouse. I need a testing environment to tinker. I'm kinda thinking WASD for movement, IJKL for facing, Q for drone targeting, E for item use, space for jump, C for my light attack, V for my heavy attack, N for the drone primary attack, and M for the drone's secondary attack. No mouse. My brain can handle it, but it's physically awkward. I dunno. @Antimatter What did you do?

 

[Primavera]

Ok, I so I threw some Nier: Automata into the mix. Holy hell, I need more buttons or a better control scheme or something. I need WASD for movement, but arrows for facing, while controlling two attacks for myself while targeting and controlling two attacks for my drone. The game also doesn't recognize more than two buttons on my mouse. I need a testing environment to tinker. I'm kinda thinking WASD for movement, IJKL for facing, Q for drone targeting, E for item use, space for jump, C for my light attack, V for my heavy attack, N for the drone primary attack, and M for the drone's secondary attack. No mouse. My brain can handle it, but it's physically awkward. I dunno. @Antimatter What did you do?

There's a pretty nice mod to improve the mouse and keyboard controls for the game, including rebinding stuff to mouse side-buttons, but I would really recommend playing this game with a controller because it was built with that in mind, and the gameplay therefore feels a lot smoother and intuitive with it (and definitely more enjoyable). The kbm controls are sadly, not that well suited for this game, even though the mod somewhat mitigates it, it still feels unnatural (at least to me).

 

[JustKneller]

I've never really been much of a console gamer (except for jrpgs like final fantasy) and anything but kbm feel unnatural to me. I would probably be fine if the bot autofired it's primary attack when I had something targeted, and then I could have a key for its secondary attack. That and the mouse look is really sluggish (I can't seem to find the setting for mouse sensitivity, but I'll keep looking).

I just had my first death against the double saw-bladed arm boss. I'm not sure if "sliding" into the blade swipes can send me under them to dodge. It doesn't seem to work, but the camera can't keep up with my movement so I'm not sure if my timing is rubbish. I dunno. I'll tinker. I like everything about it so far except the controls, but I'm hopeful I'll get there.