A positive thread about what you're currently playing

@hadestimes: I just 100-percented it. Had so much fun ripping things apart, evolving, and collecting stuff just to hear the awesome Discovery Channel-style narrator's silly jokes. It's a big dumb ball of joy, and I was weirdly way into the drama of the fake documentary about Pete, his kid and you.

Solid 8/10 for me.

Taking inspiration from the recent streams I have been enjoying the heck out of Wreckfest, Minecraft and SMM2. Wreckfest in particular is very good for the brain at the moment.

Over the last few days, I replayed The Last Of Us ahead of the sequel's release next month. It is a very good video game. Possibly even better than I remember it. Even though the models and animations are very obviously last gen it still looks *incredible*. The art direction, the use of lighting. I actually sat through the credits and watched just how many artists worked on this thing and it is quite a list. I think it might be the only game that's ever tempted me to actually use its photo mode.

Played Left Behind for the first time as well. It was nice and was fairly light on gameplay, which was pretty much what I wanted after completing the main game.

A CONTROVERSIAL five stars for The Last Of Us from me. Very excited for Part 2.

Finished the 2nd episode of Void & Meddler recently (3rd and final one is out this year supposedly, some 5 years after it first came out). Really loved the aesthetics; looks amazing, has some cool rain effects and the music fits perfectly. The story is complete nonsense but the weirdness acts as an appealing buffer to keep me from getting too annoyed at the poor grammar and spelling mistakes.

Good lord, I forgot how fantastic the class & combat system in Dragon's Dogma is. You aren't punished for trying out all the different vocations, leveling them up grants you fantastic augmentations for use with other classes, and everything feels unique and fun to play. Perhaps the best Mage gameplay of any RPG I've ever played, same with the bow combat. Playing on PC with mods that improve the textures & lighting, and the World Difficulty mod that fixes the issues with progression and difficulty, man it's a ton of fun. Haven't gotten this deep into it since the original Dark Arisen release on 360.

As much as I am waiting with bated breath for another DMC, I really hope Itsuno is working on Dragon's Dogma 2 right now.

Maneater. A completely unique and original idea executed really well; it looks good and plays good. So far I'm having lots of fun with it, it's exactly what I was hoping for. I hope they can add piranhas, anacondas, crocs and alligators one day ... or a Meg, but that's just wishful thinking. I love the "rogue animal" or "natural" horror films, and this game pushes all the right buttons.

Well, I guess I'm playing Forza Horizon 4 for a month straight since I dropped $100 on it just now.

Kinda disappointing that I don't see an option to import designs from Horizon 3, but Legos I guess.

I’ve been finding Sonic Team racing quite relaxing and easy going, which is nice during the lockdown. It’s underrated.

I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty Modern Warfare with my son's. One of whom is 2000+ miles away. We have the best time and it is exactly what I need to raise my spirits.

Also dove into the MiSTer. Getting that thing up and running is satisfying my nostalgia itch.

Great thread... Keep it going!

Watch_Dogs 2.

Like with the Saints Row series, this game is way more fun than GTAV. Looking forward to Legion.

Finally platted Vice City, but not without yet another bit of gamer panic on getting that last percentage point to unlock the last trophy. Turns out after sixteen years or so I forgot you had to spend $300 on lap dances at the Pole Position for the property asset and 1% completion. I was sitting at 99% with no indication that was what I was missing on the stat tracking screen. If it hadn't been for one mention of the requirement buried within a gamefaqs thread in a sea of Google results, I would've probably forced myself to start all over.

I may start messing around with RDR 2 mods after this video. My goodness. One of the absolute funniest things I have ever seen -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Aj2Pt5vWT8

Picked up a disk-less Xbox One and Gamepass over the past month or so, decided to download and try Ori and the Blind Forest.....played through it to 100% in about a day. Immediately went to download Will of the Wisps....100% in a day or so.

What two marvelous works of art. Everything about those games, from story and art design, to thrill of exploration and traversal moves, was pure bliss. I adored Blind Forest and their take on a traditional metroidvania and exploration, as well as Will of the Wisps and the more Hollow Knight-ish take on traversal and combat (and thankfully their decision to NOT include souls-like mechanics). Characters, some which say little and some which say nothing at all, are more alive and vibrant than so many other games. Let me tell you though, the kicker in both those games, hands down, is the music. What a terrific score. Brad was absolutely correct in his attempt to champion Ori for best soundtrack years ago. The soundtrack weaves into the emotional story in such marvelous ways that it is impossible for all but the most stone-hearted of people to not feel emotional impacts the game throw at you, from loneliness and despair, to love and hope.

I'm not sure how playing them back to back might have influenced my reaction to the games, I wonder if people who had to wait the 5 years or so for the follow-up would have the same impressions placed upon them. I wouldn't have had it any other way though, the journey of Ori and his family is one that I am beyond thankful I got to experience, it pulled at my heartstrings multiple times, brought me to tears multiple times, and still has me thinking about it days after completing. Moon Studios has made an incredible world and two incredible game. While I'm sad the games are over, I would love nothing more than to return back to this universe they so spectacularly crafted at some point in the future. I don't know if it will happen, but if nothing else, I can take a page from one of the crucial themes of Ori, and have hope.

I would urge anyone who has the means to play these games to give them a try. They are truly special.

I'm roughly 70 hours into Persona 5 Royal now and having a really good time. I played og P5 a while back and had a good time, and I do enjoy the new things that have been added so far. What might be the best side effect of playing Persona again is I have been listening to a lot of the music from 5 and the previous titles again and it's so damn good.

Recently finished RDR2 on PC. Being shut in during a pandemic turned out to be what I needed to be in the kind of mindset to want to adjust to Rockstar's very specific playstyle in RDR2 so overall I enjoyed my time with it. The constant shoot-outs in the main missions dragged on but boy was that story A-tier. Also 4k/60fps goes a long way to making the game feel better.

Now I'm bouncing around between Destiny 2, MW, and AC Syndicate with the latter being way less shit than I remember being when I first tried playing it the year it came out.

Viewtiful Joe is a damn good game I'm not very good at. Kind of reminds me of Ninja Gaiden's technicalities.

About halfway through A Hat in Time. That game is such a fun platformer. I highly recommend it. Really hope we get that rumored Mario Allstars 2 collection now, because I'm totally wanting play more platformers again.

In my quest for a low-impact game to play before bed, I booted up DC Universe Online.

Opening cutscene: holy SHIT, it's good and it's REAL grim.

Gameplay: Hang on...its...BY GAWD, THAT'S CITY OF HEROES' MUSIC!!!!!!!

The only MMO that ever managed to properly hook me, and THIS is apparently what it became. Having a blast with my villain Apex Finale (last of her kind) but honestly? The character creator will probably see at least 1/3 of my playtime...

Ghost Recon: Breakpoint

I dumped a bunch of time into this during my quarantine. They added "The Ghost Experience" which is an optional mode that removed gear score and added a ton of HUD and gameplay customization options. I enabled the Ghost Experience, tweaked the settings to my liking, and had a fun time playing.

Red Dead Online

I rewatched Deadwood during my quarantine which got me into a western mood so I dumped a bunch of time into this, too. They added a bunch of roles like bounty hunter, trader, and moonshiner that gives you something to work toward. The game really needed something like that for players to do. It's not the greatest solution I've ever seen, but it's better than it was on release.

They also changed the way the map works. You used to be visible to everyone all the time which sucked. Now your visibility is based on your hostility. Hostile players can be seen from long distances, while peaceful players are practically invisible. This change made the game playable for me.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War

I picked this up on Game Pass. It's quite the upgrade from Shadow of Mordor. I'm having a good time playing, I just wish they did a better job explaining the improved Nemesis/Army system. I know I'm not taking full advantage of it so I guess I'll have to find a guide somewhere that does a better job of explaining it.

Starting my plat run for San Andreas, I don't think there's any super annoying trophies this time out, but the fact you can't use cheats is gonna make things tough, I've become way too dependent on the health and lower wanted level codes in my previous runs. Also, I don't know what's up with this version's vertical screen tearing, it's super weird...I've never seen that in a game before.

Finished Final Fantasy 7 Remake a few weeks back and mostly enjoyed it. Awe inspiring music, great character work, cool set pieces, and a fun re-working of the combat system made it a largely positive experience.

Started in on Tales of Berseria. So far I think I still like Vesperia a bit more but I'll say that the main cast of characters and plot conceit are more compelling earlier on than they are in Vesperia. Magilou's probably my favorite character at the moment, thanks largely to Erica Lindbeck's manic line reads. I like just how much this band of misfits are painted to be anti-heroes, bordering on villains with a main goal that could objectively have a negative impact on civilization. Very much getting FFX vibes with these themes about the unreliability of organized religion and the church state. Also some of the fashion sense seems pretty freaking bonkers even by anime game standards.

Today after 119 hours I finished Persona 5 Royal, all in all it was very good experience and it made my lockdown time much more manageable as I was able to escape to Japan for a few hours a day after working online. I will be listening to the soundtrack for years to come but I was a little disappointed by the end credits song. I thought about playing P4G now that it is on Steam for my next game but I think I need a break from JRPGs for a while, maybe next spring.

Returned Horizon Zero Dawn after dropping it after putting 6-7 hours into it back near release. I was disappointed partly because it wasn't quite what I was hoping for (was expecting it to be crunchier on the rpg side) and partly because I was just approaching it wrong. Well, now that I've had a few years to sit on it I went back in with a clearer head and made some different priorities in goals (oh here's how to expand inventory space... whoops) and have been enjoying it more. Maybe I'll come out of this being more excited for the sequel.

Playing more Stellaris since Federations dropped a bit ago and mods have updated. It's more Stellaris. Time has no meaning in that game. I do not know how long I've played it.

Also jumped back into Guild Wars 2 after spending a solid hour fixing my custom playlists for it, since I upgraded computers and moved all my songs to an external and all the links in the playlist files broke. Been around 2-ish years since I last played and it's still a fantastic game to get lost in and relax. Listening to Lindsey Stirling play the hell out of a violin while running around during the day, or listening to the Halo ODST soundtrack at night is just... pleasant.

Those are my two main ones for right now, but I have played a few others sporadically. Some more Battletech because mechs are still rad. The Command and Conquer Remastered bundle is great but makes me just want Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 remastered that much more. C&C 1 is a bit rough to play, Red Alert is a bit better, but Tiberian Sun and RA2 is where C&C got it's soul from, at least to me.

And of course the Isle of Armor is dropping today for Sword and Shield so that'll be sure to eat up my time.

Replaying Bioshock Infinite on the Switch reminds me of how much I prefer the combat over say Doom, at least when using a gamepad. The story I won't give a pass because they do so many of the characters and plot points dirty (and Burial at Sea is just a tragedy in how it was executed), but the vigors and gunplay feel good. I just wished you weren't limited to only two guns at a time (and the guns themselves aren't particularly interesting compared to the previous Bioshocks, the vox weapons seem cool but aren't at all effective).

Oh and spending most of the game rifling through trash and looking for items is something I hated even back then.

SnowRunner.

I didn't play SpinTires. MudRunner was good. SnowRunner is great.

There are three regions (Michigan, Alaska, Russia) and each region has several maps. There's a steady increase in difficulty as you progress through the Michigan maps and into Alaska, and I'm sure that continues into Russia (I haven't made it that far yet).

But you're not limited on where you can go. If you can get your vehicle to the travel points you can go to any map within the region, or you can move between the regions from the garage. The question is will your vehicle be able to handle the new terrain once you get there? I've decided not to jump around too much and just go where the contracts take me. I have used my scout vehicle to explore and collect vehicle upgrades in Alaska that work on my Michigan trucks, though.

There's a bit of puzzle solving involved in completing these contracts. What vehicles, add-ons, and trailers do you want to use, how many trips do you want to make, what are the road conditions, which path do you want to take. I had a contract to haul this huge, unwieldy construction trailer from one map to another. I got to the second map and had to choose which path to take: the much longer but less risky path, or the much shorter but more risky one. I chose the shorter risky one and hauled this thing across a natural rock bridge, an island, and a second rock bridge to the destination on the mainland.

SnowRunner adds vehicle ownership and that changes things from the past game. Now you can store your vehicles in the garage and take them with you when you change regions. Maybe you have a favorite truck from Michigan and you want to use it in Russia. Or maybe you're struggling in Alaska so you go to Russia, buy one of their trucks, and bring it back to make it easier.

There's a lot of vehicle customization. There are performance upgrades like engines, suspension lifts, and different types and sizes of tires. And there's visual customization, too, like bumpers, exhaust, and paint. Most of the upgrades are either level locked (you gain XP by doing contracts) or have to be found out in the wilderness.

Some trucks have to be found out in the wilderness as well. Some can be recovered to the garage (fast travel, basically) and some must be driven or dragged there first.

I think one of the best decisions they made was to not have any depreciation. If you buy a truck for 50,000 and decide you don't want to keep it you can sell it back for 50,000. The same goes for upgrades and the various trailers in the game, too. I like this decision because it doesn't punish experimentation. Maybe you chose the wrong truck for the contract or the roads you have to use for that contract. Or maybe you just want to mix it up by using a vehicle you normally wouldn't or haven't tried before. Not being punished for experimentation is great.

The co-op is okay. It works fine for the most part, but they made the decision to make the host the only one that retains progress on contracts. If you're the guest and play a bunch with a friend any contracts you did in co-op you'll have to redo in single player. You do keep your XP, money, and truck and upgrade unlocks/purchases. It's an unfortunate decision in my opinion.

So yeah. If using beastly machines to slowly haul cargo through nasty road conditions sounds like a good time to you definitely check it out.

I'm finally playing Red Dead Redemption 2. Bought it at launch and played for about an hour as a bunch of stuff happened that meant I didn't have time to really get into it. Put a half-hour in here or there, but decided to really dig in over this past weekend.

I'm in love with it.

There's some jankiness in places, sure, but the feeling that I can just jump on my horse and ride into the great wide open for a few hours and find some interesting things to see or do is irresistible. That feeling is missing from the vast majority of open-world games, for me. I haven't stumbled across a single repeating side quest (so far) and that's refreshing. Plus it looks really nice on XOX, so I've been playing with photo mode a fair bit.

I'm still only about 22% through in terms of story progress, but I'm well and truly hooked. I didn't think it would happen, but it's one of those times that I'm kicking myself for not playing it properly sooner.

Diving into Divinity 2 and mostly enjoying myself. Though the game making me a super hobo in the early game is slightly annoying. I’m sure I will get through it, but it is irritating at least one of my characters didnt come with hobo tier armor.

I’m sure it will all work out, but it is a source of minor frustration early on. That and the reliance on save scumming.

I bought a bunch of steam games the other day, one of which Iratus: Lord of the Dead. It's like a reverse Darkest Dungeon, I'm enjoying it.

Also playing a fully modded VR version of Euro Truck Simulator. The Promods add a ton of detail to the world and it's very fun to just relax with a beer, some good music and just cruise around. I don't even take jobs, I just drive around.

Lastly, a new card set came out for Gwent so I've been experimenting with new decks there. Nice change, as the old decks were getting stale to play.

While sure the game is a glorified Tabletop Simulator, I am loving the absolute heck out of Nintendo's Clubhouse Games. Presentation goes a long way for me I suppose, and I personally love the touch of trivia that it implements with every game, makes me feel more cultured and shit!

I'm in the tail end of my playthrough of Tales of Berseria. I have to say I've grown to truly love these characters. Part of that is the quality of the voice performances (English dubs of Japanese games will always be a guilty pleasure for me) but I've been really surprised by the amount of development they've all had throughout the story. Going back to compare it to Vesperia I'd say most aspects of both games are fairly even. In terms of characters, mechanics, story, they both have good stuff for different reasons plus Vesperia gets some slack purely for predating Berseria by 8 years. I think the only thing Vesperia did markedly better was maybe the overall art direction particularly with the environments, not only did they seem prettier and more distinct but having an actual overworld added to that throwback JRPG charm.

Batman Arkham Knight: The game runs well on PC these days. ...maybe. Mileage may vary depending on how much of a money pit your PC is. Still, daaaaamn, it looks good for Unreal 3. I've always liked the art direction of the Arkham games, and this is the best one yet. Looking forward to Rockstedy taking on Suicide Squad, provided that there's truth to the rumor.

Bright Memory: It's got some jank. but there's a lot of potential for it to be a sci-fi version of modern Shadow Warrior in terms of gameplay. The full version might be a banger, so getting the demo for $10 might be worth it.

@mezmero: As someone who's been skeptical of a Tales series for many, many years, Velvet Crowe is a proper edgelord; somewhere in the neighborhood of Vegeta, A2, and Kan'u, so Berseria works for me as a non Tales fan.

Beat tlou2 yesterday on hard, no listening. Pretty happy with it even if I don't think it was quite as gripping as the first. Still, it's gorgeous and probably the most tense game I've played.

Caved in today and bought Them's Fighting Herd. Fought a high-level player for an hour without a hitch even though we were on different continents, so I was happy with it even if I didn't win a single round. The game is really intuitive and getting jobbed didn't feel as frustrating as in Tekken or Skullgirls. It helps that the loading times are lightning fast on my shitty laptop as well.

I'm enjoying XBC:DE, but as I've got older, I've realised JRPGS have no respect for the players time

Bloody Spell
Can't recommend at full price, but $8 for budget-ass Ninja Gaiden, I'm okay with this.

Mahou Arms
Okay. Another early access joint. Lewd and rude Nier clone in Unreal 4. I'm interested. Let's see where this goes, and let's check out the uncensored version.

*checks out the uncensored version*

...Yeah, I think I'll stick with the censored version.

Went back and finally played through the entirety of Tales of Symphonia via it's PC port. Combat definitely is feeling it's age, and the low production values really undercut the writing during cutscenes, but the writing is still pretty good. Game's got some pacing issues, and the ending is stretched out too long, but still: some good writing in there.

Been trying to get into MGSV: The Phantom Pain, and I don't know if I'll be able to finish it. The narrative is...forgettable, which is something I wouldn't think a Kojima story could be. Hamfisted? Yes. Corny? Uh-huh. Bad, even? Sure! Maybe it gets better, but I doubt it. Gameplay isn't really doing much for me, either, which seems like it was this games saving grace for a lot of people. Been struggling to get through the Quiet encounter, and I'm maybe a failure or two from just uninstalling and moving on; there just doesn't seem to be much here for me.

Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition. It's not as good as it was when I played the original but the combat is still fun. Feels weirdly low budget which I didn't remember. Enjoying myself.

I've been playing Half Life: Black Mesa in short bursts, less than an hour a day.

It feels like coming home. Half Life and its mods were very formative for me, in my high school days 20 years ago. I'm just past Surface Tension, and have heard lots of good stuff about the new Xen, but I'm keeping my expectations low just in case.

I got a little bit of Hitman 2 in, and its a beautiful game, very technically impressive.

Also restarted Infinifactory, with a focus on maximizing output at the start of every level. Very satisfying to make a perfectly working machine.

TLOU2 - consistently speaks to the incredible efforts the artists and designers put in. The random guitar in the music shop ... fuck man. Brilliant stuff, they should all take pride in this thing for years to come.

Just air drop a couple boxes directly on her head and move on. I'd recommend at least playing long enough for her to become a companion, because for me the game really picked up and got a whole new level of strategy taking outposts when you have a killer sniper hanging out

I've been playing The Touryst on Switch and it is so much fun! It's got a little bit of everything... exploration, humor, puzzles, fetch quests, minigames, boss fights, platforming, all wrapped up in an utterly charming voxel island presentation.

I feel like this somehow flew under the radar for most folks as I haven't heard discussion about it on GB or elsewhere but ppl should really give it a shot for a modest, utterly joyful experience that we could all use right now.

Hitman 2. It took me this long to start playing the Hitman games... It's one of the greatest puzzle games I've ever played.
The over exposure from Giantbomb made me not want to play them, but a friend changed my mind. Now it's close to an addiction, trying to get silent assassin and classic challenges on all maps.

@cornfed40: I'll give that a shot, thanks. Not sure any new toys or abilities is going to fix this game for me, though; I also don't care for the level design. This probably just isn't for me, which is a bummer considering how I've mostly enjoyed the series up to this point, and how I'm a big stealth game fan.

I'm currently working my way through Ao No Kiseki Kai. I watched a playthrough of the entire Crossbell Arc a while back when I was getting into the Cold Steel games, but with the Kai versions of Zero and Ao being put out on the Japanese PSN store, I figured now was probably the best time to play the games for myself.

The act of playing the games themselves isn't anything to write home about, they play like old Kiseki games which is fine if that's your jam, but it's great getting to spend more time in Crossbell and with the SSS. Plus, while I could be a bit off the mark here, I would imagine most people come to the Kiseki series for the story and the characters.

I'm about 5 hours into Horizon: Zero Dawn and that game's world completely took me by surprise. I knew about the robot dinosaur gimmick and that was about it (I was sort of out of the games loop when the game was coming out and recently picked it up on a random whim without any research). I really didn't expect the worldbuilding to be so cool and detailed. You really get this feeling of ages and ages of history leading up to this point, and while there is a few archetypes thrown in there on a macro level (noble honor-obsessed tribal people and crafty, deceptive imperial types) when you zoom into the detail of the culture it's actually made up of really unique individual bits. There's also surprising depth to the writing that I'm not used to in this type of games, like how the outcast lady who's only allowed to speak in prayer very clearly says specific prayers to thank Aloy after you do the quest, but she's too unused to people to get it and gets sulky for not being thanked, or the guy who's clearly suffering from some sort of mental illness but the super-religious tribespeople chalk it down to the spirits of the unfaithful talking to him. I've only barely explored outside the tutorial area, so it's possible the game loses a lot of that, but so far I'm super impressed.

Finished Tales of Berseria and really enjoyed it. I still love all these characters and was surprised by an ending that manages to be both tragic and optimistic at the same time. I've been on a tear with action RPGs this year and I may need a break. That being said between FF7Remake, Vesperia, and Berseria I've played three of my new faves within the same year.

Started playing Control on a base PS4. This has some of the coolest styyyle and mystique I've seen in a game...and that is all the positive things I have to say about playing this video game, but that's a discussion better left to some other thread.

Beat Saber. Every day for an hour in the morning. Average heart rate 130. Best workout ever.

Oh and I’m playing all my favorite songs, working through 500 of them at last count with many more to add.

It’s magical. Darn thing even got me to buy a gaming PC

Bullet Girls Phantasia

This game speaks to me on so many levels.