A positive thread about what you're currently playing

I know it's likely not a popular opinion but I'm actually quite enjoying the Call Of Duty WWII campaign and liked the Battlefront II single-player as well. Neither were ground breaking but I'm quite positive on these two. Might also be a case of having low expectations from the reviews I've read and the guys chatting on the Bombcast.

Got the Origin year pass for 19.99 and have finished/started some games.

I beat Titanfall 2 and was blown away by the single player. It's The Iron Giant meets Pacific Rim, with some of the coolest guns and best level design in a shooter period. That level where you're in the factory as the machines fabricate houses is so, so damn good. It's short and sweet in the best ways possible. So many memorable moments.

I decided to give ME: Andromeda another fair crack with a hot custom character, and I'm not hating it, I have to say, fifteen hours in. Peebee, the Scottish co-pilot, and Liam make me cringe hard, but Vetra, Drack, Cora and Jaal are totally growing on me.

Turns out you can skip the travel animations when scanning planets in a system -- on PC with an SSD if that makes a difference -- which was a big deal to me. I could see that making me not want to bother, so it is a problem, but I am able to curtail it almost entirely. The planets look stunning, which is still cool to see; the space stuff is grand and adequately arresting for the series.

The writing in the main missions is just about above average; I'm basically interested in what's happening and where it's going. Liam and Addison (very occasionally Ryder if you pick those dumb lines, which I don't) have the most inane, emotionless, badly-voiced dialogue in all of Mass Effect. I hope I can get them killed or something real soon. This game would be at least two percent better without them, and another percent without Peebee's forced ADHD acting and laughable energetic animations; she's like a drunk ballerina on fast forward.

The combat feels super good, I can't deny that either. The singularity/throw combo is delicious as ever, and the shooting is snappy. The cover system is weaker, but feels more realistic and naturally occurring rather than an, "Oh look, ten fortunately-placed crates," kind of thing.

The patches have improved the lip-syncing a fair amount -- it's not particularly noticeable anymore -- as have a lot of the animations. It's passable now in a way it just wasn't at launch. Bug-wise I've seen nothing yet outside of two characters warping into frame.

I will give a final verdict when I'm done, but so far, it's better than when it launched, and some of that Mass Effect charm is totally still there. The main missions have been pretty cool, and a few of the side ones so far. That protesters one was laughably handled, though. Jeez. The things it's inherited from Inquisition aren't all the best, but the openness of the environments is a welcome one. The resources and all that crap . . . not so much. I've stopped collecting anything but datapads and that kind of thing; for resources I just use the scanner on the Nomad and hit RB to collect them. It's quick and useful. I realize I'm making this game sound a lot better by not doing things in it, but every little helps.

Wolfenstein: The New Order

The gameplay is sublime and the stealth works great. Also, the atmosphere and storytelling is fantastic. I wish The New Colossus' level-design and stealth were on par with its predecessor.

@brunothethird: Yeah, it's not a good Bioware game, but it's more disappointing than it is bad.

I stopped playing to spend a summer renovating my home, but I'd like to get back to it and wrap it up soon. It definitely had its moments.

Playing the Witcher 3 expansions, had them for well over a year. And with no current releases striking me as that i just have to play i got around to good old Geralt again. And i was kind of amazed how good that game still looks, its a breathtaking world still. And having not touched it since 2015 the quality of life patches that the game has seen since then is mind blowing.

Finished the Hearts of Stone yesterday which i really enjoyed, and started the Blood & Wine one straight after, and again i was amazed they managed to make Toussaint even more amazing looking, its like looking at a painting at times.

My total play time so far has reached over 170 hours, its just a gem of a game.

@nutter: I would even go to the extent of saying it's not a Bioware game, but more a cover version with some of the soul lost in translation.

Just hit the 30 hour mark. To my surprise, liking it more and more. It really is a gorgeous looking game, and genuinely fun to play. Jaal and Vetra are my best buds, and Drack is like my awesome drunk uncle. Cora has become bland, though, and every other main character could drop dead and I wouldn't blink, really, because I don't care about them. Still, I'm enjoying helping people from planet to planet.

It reminds me most of the first game: janky and a bit wooden, full of potential, and has its moments, but needs work. Your character's place as a pioneering explorer is sure mentioned a lot by other people, and your actions are technically quite monumental, but the writing's never quite impactful enough for what's happening compared to Shepherd becoming a spectre and stopping the reapers; the music doesn't resonate in that same special way ME1 did; not enough new races to meet. It's absolutely Mass Effect Lite, but even in failing to draw from those wells of mystery and wonder, this formula works most of the time. I'm feeling a 7/10 so far.

The post-release patches have a lot to do with that I'm sure. It's why I decided to wait and give it a chance. Glad I did.

LTTP with Horizon Zero Dawn. Game just makes me feel good. Bright vistas, good music and likable characters, and really fun gameplay.

Slowly working through Witcher 3 expansions - finished Hearts of Stone (very good) and started Blood and Wine (fantastic). New area is beautiful!

Finished Wolfenstein II, god damn now that's a real video game

Yakuza 0 has made me cry, tense up, and laugh out loud. How does it do this? How does it manage to balance all these tones so well? What is the secret

@brunothethird: I hit that weird David Lynch-looking busted cut scene that Brad uploaded to the site. This was after a few patches, so I was shocked it still happened.

Luckily, I loaded the game up again and it played fine. It feels like there was almost a good enough Bioware game there, and it's certainly not the flaming wreckage folks make it out to be, but it's still pretty mediocre as a whole. Too many warts, technical abd creative...

I've recently been playing and following a lot of Starfinder, an adaption of Paizo's Pathfinder RPG system IN SPACE! I also have been watching a lot of streams on it. It's a shame that the game hasn't been added to the database yet.

I'm a few hours into Owlboy and absolutely loving it. What a delight this game is, what a treasure. Don't know how it slipped past me last year.

Had a random craving to play Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, after losing my save in Innocent Sin right after You-Know-Who showed up. Been loving it so far, for some reason I don't mind all its glaring faults like the sub-par localisation, grindy gameplay, and just being generally confusing. Dunno if I'll make it to the end since it's apparently a lot longer than I was expecting, but for now I'm having a great time with it.

I'm pretty into Nier right now... enjoying the soundtrack a lot and enjoying the story for the most part. On my switch I've been finishing up Mario, I'm at the very end (post-credit) and I've had a blast with that game, I just enjoy running around and exploring the world, even though I have 40+ hours into it. And even though I still have so many moons that I need to find (just over 300) I've just been running around exploring and having a ton of fun. As I'm finishing Mario up, I'm just starting BotW (got the Explorer Edition on black friday), and I already love the feel of the game and am really excited to actually dive into it seeing as I'm only about 4 or 5 hours in.

I'm playing a bunch of different stuff. Im really into the story of Wolfenstein 2 and that game has some insane moments.

I weirdly like what I've played of Agents of Mayhem so far. Most of the characters seem fun to play and if I get bored I can just swap to a new one.

Dead Rising 4 is really good but I'm early on. I'm not sure why people hated it so much but it seems like more Dead Rising 3 but with Frank and I'm into that

Played through most of What Remains of Edith Finch and all the little stories about each family member are really interesting and told in different ways. It keeps things fresh. Not usually into walking simulators but so far this is one of the better ones

Finally, I beat AC Origins last week and I'm still high on the game so it got me in the mood to play more AC. Started up Rogue because it was cheap during the steam sale and I never played it. It's very odd going back to an older AC game after 100 hours of Origins and I forgot how much I loved the ship combat in 4.cant wait to play more of this one.

The Surge has tested my patience but I'm ultimately fine with how it does it's thing. Heading into the final boss now and it has managed to finish strongly. You spend a lot of time retreading old turf and, whilst I've seen people complain it makes the game feel small, they're very intricate. There's a lot of shortcut porn. The environments look very similar and I wish you spent more time outside. I would like more bosses, too. At least the latter areas finish on a key fight and the Black Cerberus fight was pretty good. Seems more balanced than Lords of the Fallen which became a power fantasy as soon as you could equip runes.

Also, I haven't used block in this game once.

I've had a hard time recently forcing myself to stop playing Breath of the Wild. The more I play of it, the more I realize that for the first time I'm playing a game that I feel is perfect. I have zero complaints about it, I love the art style, all the different systems interwoven, everything.

I finished Assassin's Creed Origins last night. Despite some reservations about the final act, I really enjoyed my time with the game. Bayek and Aya are two of my favourite protagonists in games this year, and though I wanted them to spend more time exploring it the development of their relationship through the game was pretty interesting. Mostly, I just enjoyed being in that world. I spent my Saturday not doing any missions, just exploring every foggy area before I went into the end-game. First AC I have played since Brotherhood and I really enjoyed it.

Other recent loves: What Remains of Edith Finch (beautiful game, with some of the best storytelling there has been in games in my opinion), Wolfenstein 2 (a great pulpy story, played on easy mode), and Journey for the first time since it was released (still pretty much perfect in what it sets out to do).

Looking forward to playing Okami next week - never played it before and it will be a nice game for the Christmas break when I escape the throes of the PhD for a few weeks.

Finally made the switch from original Skyrim to Skyrim Special Edition since most of my favorite mods got ported, and this Immersive Armors mod looks like it could freshen things up a bit aesthetically.

Just finished Night in the Woods and it's my GOTY so far. Still haven't gotten round to Nier, Tacoma or Prey yet though so they could be real contenders.

@nutter said:

I'm playing through The New Colossus right now and I understand where you're coming from. I actually like the level design from a world building perspective, but it's a bit annoying that every commander is at the very, very end of the level and there's often only one windy route to get there, so any stealth mistake (which is easily made) means you're screwed. I'm playing on easy, so it's not a big deal, but I can see how that can get frustrating at higher difficulty levels.

Anyway, since this is a positive thread, I'm really enjoying the world building and the story. Clearing the level and then looking around for collectibles is really enjoyable, more so than its predecessor, in my opinion.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War. I'm at the final mission.

Finally got my kill-death ratio in Max Payne 3 above 1.0 a few days ago. Some of it was me improving, but most of it was just avoiding soft lock (auto-aim) matches as much as possible. Soft lock is terrible. I can barely run and gun when I play in those matches. I use sniper rifles a lot because I have a better chance picking players off at a distance, where they can't lock onto me, and one-shotting them with hip-shots. I can't play Max Payne 3 like a Max Payne game in soft lock. A ton of people use controllers in the PC version, sadly. You can't auto-aim with a mouse and KB, but I wouldn't want to even if I could. My win ratio is nearly positive now too.

Anyway, at the beginning of this year, I had like 150 hours in Max Payne 3, most of it single player. I now have 680 hours, most of it multiplayer.

@loafofgame: My first playthrough was with my wife as an audience, so I mostly just got through the game.

I did enjoy it enough that I'm going back (as time permits) for a Wyatt run of The New Order and The New Colossus. Then I'll finally check out The Olf Blood. I figure I'll do a little more treasure hunting on that playthrough.

@chebbles: Played through Okami earlier this year. There is a lot to like but I kinda have to warn you about this game. It's about 2 and half meaty games and it'll take you about 50 hours to see through to credits, which the gameplay just can't sustain. Again, it's still one of the most beautiful game with loads to show you but it's a massive commitment. If it was an RPG, 50 hours wouldn't feel as long but as an action adventure, it feel like one of the longest games ever. Anyway, at the end of the day, I think you'll come out on the other end liking the game but for a title with such a novel mechanic, it's surprisingly lacking in the gameplay department,.

I finally got around to The Flame in the Flood this past weekend and I absolutely love it.

The game has a ton of heart and the soundtrack is amazing. I don't know if it's by design or not, but the first time I got in the raft Landsick (the song from the trailer) played and it was a great moment.

Also, I learned that animals will attack each other when a snake save me from a charging boar and a bear took out three wolves on the same island.

Such a cool game. It makes me want to get back out and out backpack more of the north east US.

Leveled a Necromancer up to 70 in Diablo III. Still one of the best mindlessly fun games to play with podcasts as accompaniment.

Been playing the opening hours of The Evil Within 2. So far it's pretty darn cool. Never played the first one and I'm surprised how much fun I'm having with it. Structurally it feels like a cross between Dead Rising and Last of Us with just a dash of the styyyyyle from Silent Hill.

The loading times in COD: WWII allow a lot of extra time for me to catch up with family and friends.

I finished Wolfenstein II. I enjoyed the story, especially the bigger moments, but not sure how I feel about it overall. One sticking point is how it felt like the game ended too soon. Like when the credits started, I thought they were pulling a super late title card and opening credits section, but instead I walked right into the last scene of the game. I still enjoy the game, but I'm not sure where it ranks.

Got into Wolfenstein: The New Order since it seems like I might want to catch the sequel and I am super enjoying stealthing around whittling down numbers before running and gunning a bunch of damn Nazi's in their stupid, fascist faces. It is great. I also think it plays a lot better than the GB crew gave it credit for.

Also, dipped my toe into Night In The Woods. It is early but I think I am going to enjoy it.

Rise of the Tomb Raider has a really neat mix of actiony corridor sequences and open worldish gameplay. I’m mighty impressed at how it blends the two. I don’t really feel like I’m ever wasting my time on unnecessary expanses or too much filler.

I got Ghost Recon: Cocaine Mountain and Rainbow Six Siege during the Xbox Live black Friday sales in a bundle, and holy hell has that been worth it. I also got Infinite Minigolf and Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 / Infinite Warfare during the sale as well.

I've only played Siege with friends, and only Terrorist Hunt, but that is an extremely well made game and has the perfect amount of tactical "shoot that dude" gameplay and "oh god what's happening" chaos when they breach a door and two walls at once on you. Montagne makes me feel invincible. I've also died to C4 like 5 times because of it. And Kapkan makes me laugh whenever I hear the dull thud of one of his presents.

Infinite Minigolf is pretty fun. I like how Quick Play seems to just grab courses people have made and lets you push through 'em. Black Ops 3 was a fantastic co-op experience and does some real weird, but cool, things. I haven't gotten around to Infinite Warfare yet, but I really want to.

And that leaves Wildlands. Oh boy, Wildlands. This was a game that I was expecting to be average at best, but hot damn that game has just devoured my free time. I play it whenever I get the chance, and I constantly think about it when I'm not playing it. It's definitely not Ghost Recon as it used to be, but there's still enough of that there for me to make the link. The gameplay itself feels incredibly solid, though I will admit the ground vehicles aren't great at controlling (though I find them kinda hilarious), but I very much enjoy the flying (using the "old controls" feels way better to me than the new ones) and the boats are boats.

The stealth and shooting are good, and the various abilities and perks you get are extremely powerful in single player (only slightly less so in co-op, since you lose AI sync shots). The story is alright - I enjoy the various little videos introducing people or missions and the audio logs you get from collectables tend to have some interesting things in them. The "Squad" is okay, and I like some of their random chatter - it feels like it gives them a little bit of character, but it's still not much. But overall, most of my time in that game is gathering intel on collectables (supplies, skill points, weapon stuff, rebel side missions) and then clearing a zone for like two hours. I'll do a mission if I come across one, but I tend to not actively seek them out right now.

I've also gotten into the Tier One stuff, which is a post-max level system that gives you rewards every time you go down a Tier (you start at 50) but also makes the game difficulty get set higher as you move through the ranks (I think I'm around 37 or so, at I think Advanced difficulty). You can turn it off (it takes like three bullets to go down now and defense missions can be a pain), but at this point a solid 90% of my engagements take place without me doing all that much shooting, if any.

Also, the game is beautiful. It just looks fantastic. I've had an extremely good time with it so far.

Ive gone back to Hatsune Miku: Future Tone and been really enjoying it as a lazy sunday game. And with 230 songs you almost never see the same song twice. I can kinda just zone out and press some buttons.

It's still hard as hell though

Injustice 2 - love it!

Haven’t gotten this into a fighting game since Tekken 5. Great story mode and now I find myself playing the multiverse. The concept of warning new cosmetics and armor is awesome!

Man, I want to play PUBG so bad but unfortunately I have yet no money to buy an account. Is there gonna be a christmas sale for purchasing one?

Beat ME: Andromeda's main story, and reached the 95% mark of all content completed. Well, turns out, after 60 hours, I'm a defender of this game -- more than I was in my previous check-in, even. I am that guy for a change, and it's quite a nice feeling to see the good in something that was treated with such contempt. The criticisms, post-patches, are less valid now, though there is still some truth to all of them.

The writing is far too generic and grounded in 2017; half the characters are dull and poorly developed; its features are watered-down versions of everything expected in an ME game; a lot of the side content isn't referenced by the game much, by which I mean there's very little significant feedback until the final act.

It's not a special game, but it does have some great moments -- some genuinely touching ones, too -- and I laughed out loud a few times. It looks and plays really great; fun to hop into (big deal). Jaal is one of the best ME characters; he's a bit like the Prothean crew member from that DLC. I love the new race in general actually. I hope the lovely Angara returns if ME goes full-fat again.

Yeah, it's a decent side-game of the series, but not in the same league. It's like the good-intentioned younger, dumber, thinner, better-looking brother of ME 3. 7/10 for me.

In other news, my copies of Xenoblade 2 and Evil Within 2 arrived, so they're next when I've finished Mario Odyssey. I'm also finally going to beat Starbreeze's Syndicate and some other Origin Access treats I never touched (Battlefield 1, Trine, etc.)

Still facing my unending addiction to Super Mario Oddysey. Currently trying some of the harder trials post-game.

I've lately been playing FF12: The Zodiac Age (The PS4 HD re-release).

I'm really enjoying it, but i'm finding it pretty hard. I'm constantly out of money, my main team is a tier behind in weapons and my backup team don't have ANY gear.

In addition to this, my HD re-release of Okami turned up today- Forgot I pre-ordered it. Got the game, including postage for £13. Really eager to get into it!

If anyone has any advice for FF12, I'd appreciate it. I just have no money for any gear/spells

I haven't had much time to play recently due to finals, but every now and then I will take a break and play some Heroes of the Storm. That game continues to impress me. It really feels finely tuned these days and the latest patch reworked how the laning phase works in a very refreshing way. In light of how badly EA has handled progression and loot recently, I keep looking at Blizz for such things. Plenty of cosmetic stuff and the ability to get heroes you want sooner, but you can absolutely just play the game and be able to afford each new hero as they come out with in game credits. The community feels nicer than Dota or LoL, mainly because its probably a lot more casual. But with things like performance based matchmaking, the ceiling for high level play is also pretty good too. It had a bit of an uneasy start but really, its probably one of my favorite games these days.

You just reminded me to play this game. It's the only one I care about not being spoiled this year.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 makes me believe in the power of friendship.

Nex Machina : Death Machine. Holy smokes. Good-looking Bullet Hell with tight controls and fantastic soundtrack.

What more can a man ask for?

What's next : Ruiner!

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen might be the best slowburn game I've played.

I'm old and busy with a career, kids, a wife, a dog and volunteer work, but I'll happily spend three days straight trying to get from a city to a fort in the 1-2 hours a night I have on a good week.

Something about that game is just super satisfying.

I'm really digging Nier so far. Have made it through ending B so far.

I'm really enjoying Horizon; zero dawn when it is not pissing me off. I go hurray when my weak weapons finally finish off a boss. I was overjoyed when I found out I was unintertionally playing on hard. I valued the stress of missing systems or locations like; 'I wonder what is in that Ruin this time? OHHHHH...

I was very amused when my cat bit my wrist for typing this instead of acknowledging his demand for attention

The game looks great(!) on the PS4-pro. I am definitely hooked by both the gameplay even when despite (I'm starting to get it, spend those shards...), and the story that's has been interesting.

Hail the Matriarchy!

I've been pretty happy with my current trinity of Switch Games. Those are Super Mario Odyssey, Golf Story and Battle Chef Brigade.

I mean, what else can be said about Odyssey that hasn't been said. This game is strange for all the right reasons and the core gameplay is just a delight. Also, it brings a smile on my face to see Mario run around in underwear with a cowboy hat, like the Madison Square Cowboy. Essentially the reason I got a Switch initially, but I've bought a couple more gems ever since.

Golf Story is turning out to be everything I was hoping it being. A joyous, funny Golfing RPG that is somewhat similar to Mario Golf for the GBC and GBA, but even throws in its own puzzles that are solved by using arcade golf mechanics. It also has other fun side-games like disc golf and mini golf to spice things up. Been wanting to play Golf Story for a while and so far I'm very pleased with it.

Battle Chef Brigade was a purchase that was influenced by Ben and Alex's praises of it and BCB is truly a unique recipe of game elements that make it stand on its own. Gameplay wise I'd say its Monster Hunter/Beat em Up's/Bejeweled as you're fighting monsters in a 2D Beat Em Up style and you have acquire their ingredients to prepare dishes for judges by using a Match 3 puzzle format and there are 3 different elements to match (Earth, Fire and Water). The gameplay itself is very addicting and the story so far has been engaging with some solid voice acting to boot. I'm adoring BCB, but I think its flying under the radar when it comes to great indie games in 2017.

Been thinking of getting SteamWorld Dig 2 on Switch now since in the US eShop, its on sale at $14.99.

Beat Mario Odyssey. Five worlds in I was getting worried, as nothing had grabbed me too much outside of the spooky first world, but then they start banging out gorgeous locale after gorgeous locale, right til the end, with near-perfect execution. They get better and prettier, almost in order of brilliance, as you progress, and my internal squeal-o-meter went into overload when the post-credits content unveiled itself. My god it's cute. This could crack my top five Mario games list.

I'm also halfway through Evil Within 2. Voice acting aside -- it's iffy as ever -- this game somehow manages to make good on every single mechanic, idea and feature that the original game butchered so stupendously on all levels. It is everything I wanted that game to be, but even more artistic, nuanced, and fun than I expected. I'm loving it. I'd give the original game a 4/10 on a good day, but this is a strong 7 at the very least.

I switched the VA to Japanese early on, so even my criticism of the English one is no biggie.

Just put a few hours into Sniper Elite 4 over the weekend and it's been a blast. The large levels, multiple objectives, and ability to do things how you want has been a lot of fun.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is very good, lots of fun. But also I’m replaying dark cloud cause it’s awesome and one of my favourite games ever.

I also downloaded resident evil 7 again to try not a hero, im tentatively positive about it.