A positive thread about what you're currently playing

Same here!! So I played the original game when it came out. It may have been more grindy back then, but anytime I came to an orb barrier in the endgame tower I just found a new corner of the map to explore. Seriously there's so much to explore I just found it as more opportunity to uncover new mini dungeons.

I really hope we get a sequel. It was a budget title launching at $40, but interacting with all of the robots and upgrading them was too fun to throw to the wayside.

@the_greg: Cool, thanks!

Playing thru Odin Sphere Leifthrasir again. That game is just all-around rad. For those unfamiliar, it's a remaster of a PS2 cult classic, but they didn't just update the visuals. The pretty much touched on every aspect of the gameplay and made it more friendly. I love the original, but that shit was brutal and unforgiving in a way that was understandably offputting. That said, what also makes this remaster so great is that includes this new version, but you can just straight up choose the PS2 version from the main menu in all it's original glory.

The fact that this is more than a simple graphics pass means this game still holds up really, really well. The gameplay is just so much fun. It's very combo heavy (100-200 hit combos will be a very regular occurrence), but not like Bayonetta or DMC where there's a million moves to memorize. You get a handful of basic moves, but you also get a lot of spells and abilities - all of which is activated with a simple button press + direction - that switch things up and allow you to build your own combos to suit your playstyle. It's frantic but very very very accessible.

Being a VanillaWare joint though, the real star will forever be the art. It's vibrant and beautiful and would be at right at home hanging in a nice frame on your wall. Their character designs are usually a little...polarizing, but this is probably them at their most reserved and therefore I would say that, aside from 1 or 2 characters, everyone can enjoy every character in this game at least from a visual standpoint.

I honestly can't recommend this game enough.

@joedangerous: @stillvictor:

Parts of that game are super enjoyable. I loved the movement and combat. Fond memories of a flawed but fun game.

I’ve played a few games recently:

Overwatch: potential game of the generation, bottled fun.

Crypt of the Necrodancer: FINALLY got around to this game. I suck at it, but I’m learning. I wish that shopkeeper would just follow me everywhere. I think I’ll really enjoy this one.

WWE 2k18: Iove this series, warts and all. I got into it when 2k16 went free on Games with Gold. I dig the systems and core fighting, I wish the developer would focus on cleaning up the game and enhancing core systems, but I get that it’s a licensed game and Malibu Stacey getting a new hat each year takes priority.

I've been playing a lot of Overwatch, I don't know how but they've made each class have fun characters. Hats off to Blizzard for making healing fun in a video game

I'm not sure if I love Final Fantasy VI Beyond Chaos (a randomizer romhack) but it remains interesting. It's weird that many characters have whole command slots in their menu to single commands but maybe this will work itself in the end when I get loads of great relics.

I am pleased to how my boss fight with John Seed fatally broke Far Cry 5, and I was forced to start a new game . I forgot so much of what I did previously, that repeating it wasn't so bad. Also I learned how to 'do it right', so I am not playing the game wrong anymore.

Finally, I plan to invest more time with my hero, Clutch Nixon to learn how to actually pilot an airplane for when it matters, instead of blowing it off like I foolishly did in my first game.

Surprisingly, I really am enjoying myself more than before.

I got Stardew Valley on Sunday and get the shakes when I'm not tending my farm.

It's normal to think about soil patterns and planning out planting schedules while doing actual work, right?

Just finished Nioh, which I guess means I just STARTED Nioh? The tail on this game is nuts! Any excuse to hang out and get better with more weapons is fine with me.

I'm currently playing Chrono Trigger on the DS. I'm surprised by how well-paced this game is especially considering that it's an old JRPG.

Now that I'm working a new full-time job, I don't have nearly as much time to sit and play console games as I used to. So I decided to regulate console gaming for Fridays and the weekend, and try out Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for my 2DS.

So far it's been a pleasant surprise. I'm not too far in (just finished clearing out the first batch of Quests) but it's surprisingly immersive and I really like how you're expected to just live the life of a Hunter as you see fit.

Sometimes I'll go fishing for a Quest, sometimes I'll go hunting on my own for materials for a weapon upgrade (Dual Blades for life! Mobility > striking power, though I'll probably need to master a Great Sword for some of the larger monsters later on).

And sometimes I'll be in the middle of hunting for a Quest when the final boss suddenly shows up and starts making a beeline towards me, forcing me to frantically swim for shore and get the hell out of the area.

Needless to say, it's great for eating up my long morning commute and I'm really looking forward to going deeper into it.

Just bought Beat Saber last night. It's for VR only. Holy shit that is a fun game. I did not expect to have anywhere near as much fun as I did. If you have VR and like music games get it ASAP.

Just Cause 3 is on sale for $6 on Xbox One X. I tried it during the free play weekend and it’s a hell of a time.

Performance seems solid enough, some slowdown when EVEYTHING EVERYWHERE explodes, but it’s totally playable. Super great use of money.

@localdistortion: Overwatch is a damned masterwork. Everything about that game is so attractive, inviting, and fun.

Probably one of my favorite games ever.

Still on my any% Symphony of the Night speedrun quest (I just wanna crack the top 40). My PB so far is 24:57, which is passable (57th on the leaderboard when it's validated) but I can get close to the 23:30 minute mark with easy tweaks.

Other than that, I went mental and bought that Conan Exiles game, 'cos the new trailer looked Skyrim good, and played it for a couple hours. I'm way into the Conan lore, so all that stuff is really good, and the gameplay is pretty strong on top of that; simple, yes, but definitely fun, with a small layer of jank. I like the progression system, because it's immensely big in terms of time investment, but the eventual perks seem well worth it considering the unbelievably hostile environments. The survival stuff is fairly lenient on normal difficulty, with ample food and water around when you acclimate yourself. You can create a custom difficulty setting, which is such a welcoming feature in the genre. You can have everything in its hardest mode, but keep your gear upon death, for example, if you so wish.

In pure visual terms, the open-world is very impressive most of the time, graphically and artistically. I am getting deep satisfaction from just aimlessly exploring. The voice-acting, sparse as it is early on, is verging on excellent, also. I'm just hoping James Earl Jones has a cameo or something. Feels like a solid 7.5 so far; gonna sink some more hours in today.

Overwatch does. not. disappoint.

Nice to see a thread running for so long. I'm playing Beat Saber on the Vive and am enjoying it a lot. It's the kind of break-time rhythm game that I was looking for.

loving Destiny 2. I'm a huge WoW fan and I've enjoyed all of bungie's Halo games, this feels like a beautiful marriage of the two. I've never played a Destiny game and I'm glad the humble bundle was doing a great deal on it. The way they design maps is incredible and the Loot / stuff to do has me hooked.

Beat SteamWorld Heist on Switch this past Wednesday. I was pleasantly surprised with how good of a TBS this game ended up being. The combat and character movement is similar to XCOM, but it’s on a 2D plane and you’re responsible for making the shots by aiming at your enemies or aim at walls to use bounce shots to hit opponents. The game also does a decent job throwing in different missions for you to approach and it’s one of the few games where I liked all my party members and wanted to increase their experience. Every member’s abilities felt meaningful and adds for some nice depth in strategy. Highly recommend this to anyone who has a Switch and wants to play a TBS for 20 bucks.

Just finished Nier Automata. My feelings are somewhat conflicted but my god what an incredible video game/experiance/work of art.

Yakuza 0! The internet told me Yakuza series is incredible, and I finally got to play it! Got Y0 and Kiwami on the PSN japanese games sale. It is, perhaps, the best game I have ever played. Might be my new favorite game of all time. There is just so much stuff to do! So many side quests, so many side activities and some of them seem to be fairly deep. The amount of stuff surprises me at every turn. The combat is also very good and fun, the finishers look cool. The story is super interesting and mysterious, with an awesome cast of characters and great protagonists. I love this game! I'm 60 hours in, with a lot of side stuff done (I still only have 34% completion) and on like chapter 11. I will 100% and platinum this game and I'm going to enjoy every second of it. Everyone needs to play this game. It is as good as everyone says it is. I can't stop thinking about it and it deserves all the praise it gets. I just love this perfect balance of the serious story and hilarious silly side stuff. The music's really good too! Just everything! Like, wow!

My kid has me playing Fortnite Battle Royale with him.

Something positive....You can pay money to unlock a solid co-op PvE game.

@frodobaggins: Mixed is about right. I adore that game as the things it gets right it gets so right. One of the most memorable games of the last several years.

I'm almost finished Persona 3 which is a lot of fun, music is great, been at the lake in God of War for about an hour exploring liking that game more and more, and i'm slowly sinking into the eve online hole, almost at 300 million isk.

Assassin's Creed 2, blind playthrough.

Kinda regret sleeping on this for so long. Though it is tempting to jump ahead and be a pirate (since I got Black Flag for free during some Ubisoft promo event), I'm gonna do my due diligence as someone who likes games and finish this and buy Brotherhood and Revelations later down the line.

I'm working on doing post-game content, 100% completion and a platinum in Yakuza 0, which became one of my favorite games ever, after playing through it for the first time this month. It's my first Yakuza game and it was a blast. I also beat Kiwami like 2 days ago and will do 100% and platinum in that after 0.

Other than that, I'm playing Morrowind GOTY again, PC with bugfixes mods and custom resolution mod to allow for 1080p. I want it to be as close to vanilla as possible. I've tried getting into Morrowind and Oblivion in 2017 but some other games came out and I dropped them. I'm a huge Bethesda Game Studios fan, one of my favorite devs, I spent countless hours in Skyrim, F3, F4 and NV (I know this one's Obsidian) so I set out a goal to finally play Morrowind and Oblivion and try to get into them. They are a bit outdated but I don't mind it that much. There is a learning curve however, at least in Morrowind. Mark my words though! I will get into them, and beat them both, including expansions and side quests. I just really want to discover their magic and what makes them so good, why so many people love them. I'm confident I will grow to love them as much as I do other BGS games.

I love westerns. I also love Remedy and all their influences for Alan Wake.

Red Dead Redemption and Alan Wake came out at about the same time. I bought both, but largely ignored Red Dead while beating Alan Wake, its DLCs, and its standalone arcade game several times each.

I’m finally giving Red Dead some time. It’s slow to start, but the open western world and shooting mechanics are a blast. Horses work well and lassoing/hog tying is a great mechanic.

I’ve just been hunting, hitting missions, and gambing as mood strikes me, and it’s been really emersive and great.

Plus, it looks pretty spectacular for its age on Xbox One X.

@facelessvixen: I liked Brotherhood more than two. Black Flag is the best AC I’ve played, though.

I have a copy of Revelations, but haven’t played it. I’m told that’s a fair choice.

I started playing Dead Cells on Steam a few days ago and it's incredible. It's been a long time since a game has grabbed me like this. Can't wait for it to come out of early access.

Going though the PS2 Ratchet & Clank games via the HD collection on PS3. Good times, and I'm apparently still pretty good at them.

The Jak and Daxter games are next, including Jak X which is still pretty dope and I still have a physical PS2 copy.

Tesla vs Lovecraft. It only has like 8 enemies and a similar amount of maps, and the game practically lets you play through the same spots 3x. That said, it has made me lost track of time everytime i booted it up. It feels good, you get to make meaningful decisions and the rounds are snappy. Great game.

Finally finished Gears 4. Graphics and shooting, that's what this was all about, and it looked and felt great. Success.

The writing and story were more amateurish than ever, though, full of quips that never land, story threads that never pay off, zero intrigue or horror-tinged moments, and the most emotionally awkward and abrupt ending of a videogame I've played in a while. We saw the mother for about two minutes all in all, each minute bookends of the game; why would we care about her?

Marcus was shoehorned in; him and the son play the love-hate game for about five minutes (with little explanation as to why) before everything is tickety boo; the psions and the new squidgy ones never, ever feel like a significant threat. You need to see your villain more than once in a cutscene to actually be a villain. The reason they're still even on Sera is explained about as well as a child saying, "because," repeatedly.

The pacing was bizarrely predictable, too; mechanical, even. Nearly every cutscene happens after you kick a door down; one of you says, "all clear" after a fight (which alternating members of the crew keep making jokes about); "Storm's coming, we need to get inside," moments happen about five times with zero variety; the COG leader in robot form gets her head destroyed like six times mid-sentence in cutscenes (not exaggerating); three of the cast get kidnapped in the exact same way.

I'm not one to complain this much usually, because it's a dumb shooter, but I expect a baseline with bigger games: some kind of coherent story structure, a cool nemesis, and character bonding. There are only two brief scenes where any two people connect with each other and show you their actual relationship. I didn't even know JD and Kait were together 'til the end of Act IV when it's mentioned.

I liked Act I and Act V a lot, but that's about it. This is a 6/10 game for me.

Playing the Mario Tennis Aces demo ^__^ And the Sushi Striker demo! Who knew that in 2018 we would still have demo's? I like them both a lot. I played more Mario Tennis. The first day I wasn't completely sold. I just played a little against the COM. But today I had some really thrilling matches that made me want to buy the game. Even if I only play offline, I think it will be fun enough for me.

Oh and I am playing Moonlighter. A kind Recettear game with less story and more grind, but it's still a lot of fun to me. It's a nice game to play after doing some serious things.

Oh oh and Pixeljunk's Monsters 2. My little sis loves the game, so we play together sometimes. I'm usually not much of a tower defense fan but this one grabbed me somehow.

Destiny 2. I'm playing it as a solo shooter in which sometimes other people show up and help out, just like I played the first game, and as such it's quite fun. I mean, if Bungie is good at anything, it's making the pew pew feel great.

I know the game has some major problems when played "as it's meant to be played", but for ten bucks through Humble, I'm more than getting my money's worth.

Have been doing teacher training this year and really struggled to make the time for games, not for lack of trying. Seems like I've finally managed to keep up something consistent with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - having a lot of fun going for a non-lethal run and being able to sit back with a coffee in the evening and get lost in the science fiction waffle that the game revels in has been nice.

I just finished the second dungeon of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. It's great so far!

Not only are the dungeons more brain taxing than your typical Zelda (I was stuck in one for an hour because I had forgotten a crucial detail about the layout), but the world is so wonderfully weird that every new thing I find puts a smile on my face. And it still has plenty of elements of the franchise that I love, like the Song of Storms guy!

It's a treat getting my old weapons back and figuring out the best ways to interact with the new elements. And it's so easy to play for a bit and come back to later, just like any good handheld game! I'm having a lot of fun with this one and can't wait to see how Ages is different! ^_^

@shagge: 2017 gets all this credit as being a great year for games. For me, it’s the year Bungie and Bioware both let me down tremendously.

I’d say Destiny 2 was the bigger bummer.

That said, playing like you are, just getting some surface level shooting out and then tossing it aside, that’s a good way to play Destiny 2. It’s a pretty game with some rock solid shooting.

Streets of Rage

I had this game as a kid and I really enjoyed it. I always remember thinking Final Fight was so much better, though.

Playing through both recently, Streets was the better game, mechanically. They both have cheap garbage bosses meant to much quarters (or keep you from beating the game in one sitting, in Streets of Rage’s case, but Streets of Rage’s moment to moment combat is deeper and cooler.

The voice acting for Pillars of Eternity 2 is really enjoyable, especially being a Critical Role fan

@nutter: Yeah, it sounds like they really dropped the ball on other aspects of the game. Even small stuff like shaders got fucked over in some brazenly cash-grabbing ways.

But man, that moment to moment gameplay... it feels weird to be a fan of a franchise when you don't care to partake in its main draw, haha.

@shagge: Yeah, I got burned on Destiny 2 from the loot, leveling, mystery, activities, and replayability perspectives, but Bungie is still A-Tier in FPS combat all these years later.

Been playing that Mario Tennis demo and while I'm still not 100% good on the controls (the 2 different ways to perform trick shots are confusing), the game still feels very fun! Its nice to build up meter for either the special shot, the zone shot or do a slow mo shot. The controls are snappy and its cool Nintendo is giving you incentive to play more so you can unlock more characters in the demo.

I've also been playing Yoku's Island Express and man, that game needs more attention. Its an unlikely sweet marriage of metroidvania exploration and pinball gameplay and everything just feels right when you play it. The pinball itself feels tight and satisfying and you're normally rewarded with another pathway on the map or get something like Fruit (the game's currency) paint to color your pinball and power ups (noisemaker power up is one of the best opening upgrades in video games). Plus Yoku's Island Express oozes in charm and cuteness. The game has a great hand drawn look to it, the music is some of the most underrated of 2018, and Yoku himself is an adorable Dung Beetle who's just relieving the island former postman of his job and finds himself trying to save the island from a deity killing threat. I'm loving this game and look forward to beating it.