A positive thread about what you're currently playing

I got Splinter Cell Blacklist for a few bucks and its pretty good. I haven't played a SC since Chaos Theory. The PC version aged pretty well and looks surprisingly good for a five year old game with everything maxed and 4xTXAA. On the "realistic" setting there are some odd difficulty spikes (playing non-lethally), but overall I am having a good time bonking dudes and dogs in the head.

I have been binging destiny 2 recently, been doing all the year one errands. Was able to get whisper of the worm. Hoping the year 2 content is going to live up to my expectations!!

After binging on RPGs lately I thought it was time for a change and still somehow ended up finally buying and starting Wasteland 2. Holy shit this is awesome. My first rpgs were Fallout 1 and 2 and this really is the 3 I always wanted. Don't get me wrong, the first person ones are also good, but isometric is how I prefer to view my post-apocalyptic wastelands.

I've thrown myself headfirst into my backlog and found myself playing Brad Muir's Massive Chalice.

For those unfamiliar, it is a strategy game with turnbased battles (X-COM inspired) where you take the role of an immortal ruler of a fantasy kingdom that is besieged by a strange and unrelenting force known as the Cadence. The only way to defeat the Cadence and save your kingdom is to stave them off for 300 years, whereupon the eponymous magical (and massive) chalice will ready to repel them for good.

To stave them off you draw upon the heroes of your noble houses to serve as soldiers, researchers and... well... having more babies. This is one of the biggest differences from XCOM. Your initial batch of heroes cannot survive to see victory. They will die, by old age if nothing else claims them first. But their houses may remain, passing down their teachings (XP, classes, genetic and personality traits) and relics to the next generations. You oversee these houses, trying to keep them alive and as strong as you can through hard decisions about what marriages to arrange, what science projects to take on etc.

It is a very strange and interesting game, this "Noble bloodline managing simulator" especially. The enemy types you encounter in the battles are also very interesting, all based around some kind of deterioration, often having effects beyond just dealing damage to your heroes.

I more or less finished OnRush: I made it to PlatinumAce(1) in the PreSeaon and Platinum Trophied the game.

This game is really fun, in the way a few rounds of Overwatch or Rocket League are fun.

The Burnout-esque Takedowns combined with FPS-style rounds instead of racing really works. The goals are simple enough: Hit gates to add time, stay in a zone for 5s, survive with 3 lives, score combo chains by boosting for a long time. But they all result in different games. And because of the goal orientation you always have a job to do, and you can always still win. Unlike racing games, where if you make a few mistakes you are often in the back end of the pack for the rest of it.

I will acknowledge that at full price this game is a gamble, because there is a decent chance its online playerbase does not survive the upcoming fall releases. But if you can pick it up for $30, I would heartily recommend it.

Been going back and playing a lot of older games lately, some for the first time and also some replays. Figured I'd do this now before all the big games start dropping.

Finished the Megaman X collection recently and those games are still mostly fantastic. X1 and X4 are still two of my favourite games and the rest aren't bad except for X7 obviously. Even got some enjoyment out of X6 since it has the benefit of still playing like the other PS1 games aside from some sketchy level design. Blade and Shadow armour are GOAT Megaman suit designs as well. Now I'm playing Megaman Legends 1 to continue on with the Megaman theme. Played the beginning of this game a lot but never beat it so hope to change that soon.

Also going through the Mass Effect series again thanks to Mass Alex. Finished up 1 for the 4th time and it might be my favourite of the trilogy. I love the gameplay of the other two but the first game has all those RPG elements that I love. PC version is a major improvement from the console versions. Has some annoying stutter in larger areas and the menus but the graphical mods and fps more than make up for the small issues like that. About 15 hours into the second game now and having a good time. This will be the first time I'm playing Mass Effect 2-3 with the DLC's. May even play Andromeda after the trilogy run through if I'm not too burned out.

Never played the Gears of War games and I’m working my way through them via Game Pass. Currently near the end Of GoW2, and these are great shooter games

Got Pacman 256 for cheap last week on PSN and while it's no CEDX or even CE2, it's pretty fun and I've played way too much of it killing time before bed.

Got a great deal on Shadow of Wardor: Gold Edition so I hopped back into the first, and I know it's now the in thing to hate on, but I remembered just how much I f'n loved that game playing through the Hunt dlc campaign. I didn't care too much for the Bright Lord dlc however, I was never big on taking control of the orcs (outside of certain challenges that required it) when it was just too easy to slaughter them left and right. Got all the trophies in both campaigns except the two that require you to kill all the warchiefs in like forty minutes....which takes way too much scouting, planning, and backup saves to pull off.

I managed to beat three games on my week off!

Mega Man 3: The soundtrack is really upbeat and cool!

Devil May Cry: Combat can be really fun despite its age, and the game still looks pretty good for such an old game. I also like how there's no rigidly specific way to beat enemies and bosses, so you can exploit items to kingdom come and improvise your own solutions to a problem. And the story is so cheesy that it's charming.

Doki Doki Literature Club: This game had a few moments that really got inside my head in a creepy way, and for such a short game, the characters are actually pretty memorable and endearing when they're not dying in horrific ways, to the point that I might've enjoyed the game even more if it had just been a normal VN. In fact, I wanted it to be one so badly that I installed my very first mod to make the game just that. Looking forward to going back and trying it out a bit later on ^_^ also the main menu theme is totally infectious and the vocal version for the credits is pretty good as well.

I just started Shantae: 1/2 Genie Hero this morning on the way to work, and as someone who got into the series with Pirate's Curse on 3DS, the first thing I can say is that the new visuals are gorgeous. It looks and runs beautifully, and I'm happy to say that the series' trademark sense of humor is intact. And for all the fuss about this game being less Metroidvania in design, I'm still finding paths I can't access just yet, so I'm confident that I'll have fun tracking everything down. Music's good too!

I'm really loving the presentation of Donut County, but I've been trying to savor it - i don't think it's super long!

I've also been loving Monster Hunter World, the progression has been super satisfying - going back and crushing monsters that you were having a lot of trouble killing ~10 hours ago is crazy rewarding.

Jumped back into The Master Chief Collection last night after this week's major update. The matchmaking is probably the smoothest it's ever been. 343 has temporarily truncated the number of available playlists, just until a larger playerbase has the update installed, but they've removed map-and-mode voting from the lobbies and have broken Halo 3 out into its own playlist. A real treat, because Halo 3 was beginning to dominate the previous iteration's voting system.

I'm running an Xbox One X on a 1080p display. But even then, I feel like I notice the uptick in visual quality. It's minor--things like improved anti-aliasing and geometry rendering in the middle-to-long distance. But after four years, this feels like the launch the collection should've had in the first place.

I'm playing Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive - After the announcement of Desperados 3 it dawned on me that i own both of the games in the series but haven't played them despite my love for the Commandos series and really enjoying Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun a few years back.

I'm close to completing it and i'm really enjoying the game despite glaring flaws. This game type is basically a genre all it's own and i'm looking forward to playing the second game in the series as well as going back and finishing the Commandos games that i never managed to finish. Maybe i'll even play that Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood if that thing runs.

Persona 5 got good music

Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 - Still plays a good game although I wish they'd put more into their fake Champions League / Europa league stand-ins. Lots of new teams and leagues to fiddle with, too.

Death's Gambit - Back in for a third playthrough. This time going for the heroic boss fights. It's a shame that game's got some really short areas which make it feel like a boss rush. Still, it's a fun little game to steamroll through.

@liquiddragon: This should be a video segment for the crew to play and only say positive things. It's fatiguing hearing negative comments all the time even about games that are supposedly fantastic. Same deal with movies, just tell me if its worth watching, save me the gauntlet of negativity about how the CGI in one scene wasn't on point. What was a thing or 2 you liked about it, that is all, thankyou.

At the moment I am playing halo 2 since the MCC update went live. Brings back a lot of good memories, Dual wielding is so cool and weird in a halo game now. The updated graphics are incredible, every now and then it's fun to hit the button and remind myself of what it did look like (also, shooting things with a ghost is a lot easier in old graphics due to the crazy effects in the updated version). I'm keen to jump into a bit of MP as well and try out the other campaigns.

Oh boy there is a crap ton of stuff I'm playing on Switch right now:

• Dead Cells: Still really like it, now getting used to parries and like the mutation where parries give you a percentage of health back. I need to beat the Ossuary elite to get the ground pound rune though.
• Hollow Knight: Gorgeous game with lovely presentation. Like how combat works and the layers of strategy you can use for your soul is neat whether you want to heal or use it as a powerful projectile attack. Onto the mushroom world and the mantis enemies are killing. Having to backtrack from the last resting place to where you died is a bit of a pain, but the game seems to encourage open exploration. Still this game is super well made.
• Freedom Planet: I've talked about this game countless times before, so I'll keep it short and say this game plays better on the Switch than it does on the Mac.
• Into The Breach: This is a great strategy game. The fact that you have a set number of turns and your primary objective is to defend buildings from being destroyed by the Vek rather than killing all the enemies (those are side objectives) is really cool. Other side objectives might be to defend coal plants or electric plants into order to get more power. The leveling up is nice but also requires a lot of thought as to how exactly you want to improve your mechs such as thinking one mech needs more health or should you heighten the attack strength of another mech? Playing through witht he Rustling Hulks and they have been awesome for cancelling attacks and pushing enemies out of the way. THinking of just doing the final mission after beating 2 islands, which I did not expect the game to be so short, but the replay value could be to test these different mechs out and see what you like.

A Way Out was a fun experience. Not because they deliver on everything they kind of implied the game would do (changing approaches and outcomes dynamically as you play) but because of the simple ways the game sets the players up to banter between themselves. My friend and I were together when we played and the whole way through, we were laughing. Turns out, you can have a lot of fun with a game that's not so great in and of itself, but in what it gets you to do. The simple mechanics didn't get in the way of its goal at all and in fact, let us mess around moreso than we would have if had to focus really hard on playing it.

I am finally finishing the Witcher 3, and I am increasingly impressed with the environments and world design. Fantastic vistas, oppressive darkness this game has it all. Also the foglets are I think my favorite enemies in any game ever. The way they turn into fog and how you track their movements by following fog is amazing and on higher difficulty, they can be extremely frightening to encounter especially in Skellige and the dark woods there. I am also digging the love triangle between Jennifer, Triss and Geralt and it makes me want to go back to the earlier games which I haven't played to get the back story. Not surprising anyone, The Witcher 3 is a good game!

As soon as my mail truck arrives, I'll be playing Dragon Quest XI and 428: Shibuya Scramble. I played the demo for 428, which contains the first 3 hours of the game, and absolutely loved it. The game has a presentation similar to other visual novels, although it is technically classified in Japan as a sound novel, but has a surprising amount of interactivity and gameplay in how the choices you make as one character can effect the storyline of the other four playable characters. So while there are not really any puzzles like in a traditional adventure game, 428 has a surprising amount of puzzle-solving that is done by figuring out what choices need to be made in order for all the characters to progress with their stories. It is a lot of fun and the game has a charming story where it mixes its serious plot with plenty of zany comedic moments, very similar to the Yakuza series. Can't wait to jump into the full game today.

I've also been playing a little of Valkyria Chronicles II on the side and, while the game is not as good as 3 or the original PS3 game, it is much better than I believe most people give it credit for.

Dead Cells - I actually didn’t think the game was for me just looking at videos of it. But hearing people on the site rave about it on podcasts I had to finally cave and give it a go. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Not only is the combat both strategical and frantical at the same time depending on situation you find yourself in, I actually enjoyed the run-based setup for it better than any precious rogue-like game I have played. Perfect game for those times when I just have time for a brief session of game and I still feel like I am progressing, even if it was just putting a handfull of cells into something.

Divinity 2 - I fell off the first one after a bunch of hours. I was playing it cooperatively with my brother but we eventually both found ourselves aimlessly wandering and getting into bad fights. But this one somehow seems better designed somehow, I feel drawn into the world and the story and the amount of moments I have found a solution by basically brute forcing it rather than jumping through hoops or simply using skills in moments nothing happened only to be rewarded somehow (story or item wise) has been fascinating. The world feels flexible to how I play in a really fun way. Also, I decided to Lone Wolf rather than run with a full party, making the game a lot less micro managing. Good times, cant wait to get back to it.

Assassin's Creed: Origins is soooooo good. It feels so good to play Assassin's Creed again. I can already tell this is going to be a 60 hour game for me.

Giving Doom (2016) another try ( I REALLY didn't like it when it launched). Its fine. I'm just coming off of Prey and they are so drastically different in terms of controls. Doom is soooooo floaty, BUT i'm actually enjoying it more now. I think i expected too much originally and now I just enjoy it for what it is. Plus, killing demons is always fun!

I started replaying Rise of the Tomb Raider on and Xbox One X with an OLED.

The opening is beautiful, then it transitions to gameplay and I was floored. I haven’t had a “wait, I get to control something that looks this good” moment in quite a long time.

@muppjockey: I believe House Taswell is a thing in that game, too.

I’ve played a bunch of Massive Chalice. It’s a good time.

@atastyslurpee: I played that just after my twins were born on my Nvidia shield tablet in bed, and forever now the cry of a baby makes my fingers twitch.

Ugh, don't say that! I have a Steam copy of Freedom Planet waiting to be touched and yet I find myself super tempted to get it on Switch anyway! How does it play better? :D

@nutter: Agreed. Massive Chalice is a fantastic game. Also, Brad Muir!!!

Destiny 2, because it is free. Shooting feels really good, but hate all the weapons I've been given so far. Pop into a mindless shooter every once in awhile to kill the shit out of some stuff in a campaign, so its doing good for that.

Bayonetta 2 -

I'm finally able to play this and man, it's pretty great so far. I probably shouldn't be but I'm surprised Nintendo seem to have actually given Platinum a real budget for this thing. I thought it was going to be a run-of-the-mill follow-up to satiate the enthusiast crowd but it feels like a proper sequel. If it doesn't become a massive recycle-fest deeper into the game, this might be something truly special. It's got me super excited about Bayonetta 3, which having not played B2, wasn't really on my radar.

The only thing I'm not quite use to yet is her new face? I'm not far so I probably will eventually (and I know this is quite a nitpick.) Haven't done a side-by-side but Bayonetta looks different. I'm not talking about the hair, she has a different face. It's like smaller, cuter, and more Asian and I'm still kinda taken aback everytime I see it in cutscenes. I just remember her having more of an adult Caucasian face that looked a bit more authoritative and in line with her personally. There is a bit of a clash now 'cause her attitude is still the same as the last game but her face doesn't quite match it. Idk if anyone knows what I'm talking about.

Anyway, it's a real shame this is an exclusive. It feels wrong that not every fan of the series get to play it.

Initial D: Extreme Stage -

It doesn't make a good 1st impression but it's revealed itself to be one of the deepest arcade racers I've ever played, if not the most. It's the only arcade racer I have to play in 1st-person which is kind of a bummer as I like to play arcade racers in the 3rd person but you get use to it. Anyway, it's quite challenging to take the corners just right but it feels amazing when you hit it just the right way. Also, it's got me excited about Initial D again and I'm thinking about finishing the series. The only thing is, I forgot where I left off.

@nicksmi56: The button layout for the joycons feel more nature to the game's controls than a keyboard layout would. Its easier to land certain attacks using joycons such as Lilac's divekicks, which were almost impossible on the keyboard. Also Carol is a lot more fun to play on Switch than on the Mac Keyboard (it was kind of a nightmare with her on keyboard honestly). I haven't played as Milla yet, but I bet she'll feel just like a Super Mario Brothers 2 character on a Nintendo platform.

Got myself a DS Lite again in preparation of beginning my relatively expensive venture of buying GBA and DS games from my childhood. $50 for a cobalt DS Lite with a working hinge is a damn good deal. Kinda sucks the Pokemon HeartGold is on the more expensive side of DS games, but it'll be worth it to have is back since it's my favorite on of the bunch before I coincidentally bailed on the Pokemon series after Gen 4.

Been playing Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Nothing groundbreaking, it's just more Tomb Raider which is very fun and looks gorgeous. Also has some great music.

BLOPS Blackout has sold me on a cod game for the first time this gen. It's pretty much going to be my go to BR game. Surprising how well put together that thing is.

EA has finally started fixing some of the many issues in Madden this year. Probably going to start my real franchise soon, I just need to find a team I like.