A positive thread about what you're currently playing

@banefirelord: I played Dishonored 2 with all quest/objective markers turned off and it was very fun exploring the world that way. It must have taken a lot of hard and smart work to design levels to be completable (is that a word?) - let alone to be fun doing it - without objective markers.

I've gotten back into Ghosts of Tsushima with the Director's Cut (and having procured a PS5). I dropped off it originally on Ps4 after playing through the first island. I've started from scratch but I think it's hooking me more this time around. I expect it will fall into that typical open world everything is samey trap that most open worlds games do, but I'm having fun with it so far

I also picked up Anno 1800 in an Epic sale like 3 or 4 weeks ago and I'm now 50 hours into playing it. I friggen love this game - I'd never played an Anno game previously but I did like city builders like Caesar III 'back in the day'. Anno does such a fantastic job with the production chain loop and having so much to consider. The mini quests and expeditions shake things up, it looks gorgeous and I think it might be moving right up there as one of my favourite games. I find it hard to sit down for long stretches with games anymore, but Anno keeps me wrapped really easily. I've got the first two Season Passes and have barely scratched the surface with them, but I like what they added so far. I'm holiding off on the 3rd until I've sunk more into this game. The campaign in it was a good intro to the game's mechanisms - I can't fault this game at all. I'm all in on it.

I've been playing a lot of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice lately. I had rented this game before but it ran so poorly on my base PS4 that I decided to wait and get it on my PC when it goes on sale. I'm glad I did because it runs soooo much better on my current machine. Not gonna lie, this game has been kicking my ass but overall I'm enjoying having a stiff challenge to overcome and have made good progress all things considered. I'm liking it more as the throwback to Tenchu that I always suspected it to be since I rely on stealth to progress through most areas. The deeper I get I find myself enjoying the use of Japanese folklore more and more. Makes the game feel like Okami to Dark Souls' 3D Zelda, including the fact that you can actually jump.

I've also dabbled a bit with Star Renegades. I'm really digging the general design and animation of the character sprites. Give me a Mass Effect game where I can hang out with these weirdos. If I had to compare to something else it feels a bit like a sci-fi Darkest Dungeon and just a pinch of Final Fantasy X where a big part of the battle strategy is delaying/denying enemy turns. I hit a wall with the second planet after a few attempts but I'd like to come back to this game when I can.

@newhaap: After beating it, I watched NoClip's various Arkane documentaries and this excellent GDC talk about the studio's approach to level design. It seems incredibly difficult, even by game development standards, and I envy their talent and imagination.

Just finished Days Gone. I thought it was a really fun game, had some weird dialogue in it but the gameplay and story were good overall. Really badly reviewed game. Didnt matter too me though.

Remnant: From The Ashes

I'm only an hour in, but this seems like the "Dark Souls with guns" that I wanted Immortal: Unchained to be.

I finished Sekiro and liked it a lot! I even got all the achievements for it since it becomes pretty breezy to replay once you get the hang of it. It can be a pain to hit a brick wall with some of these bosses but I can't deny that once I learned to plant my feet and take them head on I can't think of many more satisfying moments I've had in games. To me this game felt less like the typical Souls RPG but what I was reminded the most of are the new school Ninja Gaidens. You play a ninja-ass-ninja who has all the tools and abilities that we all agree stereotypical ninjas to have, and you have to use that specific skill-set to overcome impossible odds of an enemy force using every advantage they can to stop you. I'm a sucker for a setup like that.

After that I've become OBSESSED with Monster Train. This game single-handedly sold me on the joys of deck building games. I made the mistake of having the DLC On by default so I was stuck on covenant rank 1 for a long time before needing to turn it off to go further. Weirdly enough I ended up rolling back to rank 1 to finally beat The Last Divinity for the first time. It's a terrific game.

I fell down the Factorio hole again and did a new run on peaceful mode because I needed something as a distraction. I took a few optimizations I learned from my last run through the game and ended up finishing this run 6 hours faster, all while actually researching more stuff before the rocket finally blasted off. I have a few concepts I figured out this time around that I'll apply next time and hopefully that'll speed things up even more. I've been actively avoiding guides or anything for this game because I love figuring out the optimizations myself.

Other than that I've been playing Wind Waker and doing Hitman challenges. Wind Waker is still an amazing game and has aged very well, especially compared to a lot of other games from that era. Hitman is Hitman. It's one of few games that gets me properly excited when I play it, especially when something goes exactly to plan. The challenges basically turn it into a very silly strategy game where you have to figure out how to orchestrate the right series of events to set you up to finish off the challenge.

I just stared playing The Good Life today and man, it's a SWERY game for sure, but it's also not totally on fire, at lease on on the Gamepass PC version. I've really enjoying it's bonkers setting and goofy sense of humor, weirdly coupled with some surprisingly dark themes that would be at home with Francis York Morgan.

Also, and I can't be sure, I think there is a Ryan Davis Easter Egg in it. The cafe in the game serves a burger called the "Taswell Special". I certainly cant confirm it's about Ryan, but the only other Taswells I'm finding on google are a boat company, an unincorporated part of Indiana and a Minecraft track, and only maybe the Minecraft song would make sense, plus Ryan and SWERY met once or twice and SWERY knew about the endurance run, so I dunno. I like to think it's a shout out.

Mindlessly shooting with a new OC in Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet while listening to the new Vildhjarta album, masstaden under vatten.

I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned the game frequently enough to establish that I like this game, so I don't feel the need to re-mention the things that I like about it; only that Vildhjarta's new album enhances it.

I was really enjoying Yakuza LAD until I got to this really hard fight I can't seem to get past, at all. I've died three times and it's killed any and all momentum I had for the game

I started playing Control when it was on Game Pass a while back on my Xbox One. The game ran ok and the setting was incredible, but I could tell I wasn't having the visually impressive experience others had had on PC. Finally it locked up on my Xbox multiple times and I decided to wait until I could play it on something that could do it justice. Just restarted it the other night on PC and holy cow were people right about this game. The atmosphere is still amazing, but visually I was missing out on so much! I wasn't sure how much I'd want to go back through the 4-5 hours I had already played, but I'm having a great time rereading every scrap of kafka-esque paperwork in the bureau. Such a good game.

Assuming youre talking about Majima and Saijema?

When playing it on my PS5 I was always thinking, "Yeah, I can see why a PS4 would have trouble with this." It's good but I definitely tired of the combat near the end. I still have Max Payne top of the Remedy tree.

@cornfed40: believe it or not, I think it's actually a pretty routine encounter! I'm on my way back to a quest location in act 3, and my guys are level 11. I have the cop and the bum.

Blocking my way to the objective is a pack of really tough enemies. They're about level 14-15 and they're all kung fu guys that do like 50 percent of my hp in a single hit. It's just not fun.

I feel like I just need to grind on trashx which is such a let down.

@sombre: The encounter I referred to, i had to literally grind through the underground fighting tournament one and a half times to be able to beat it. There's some tough crap that just feels downright cheap towards the end of that game, if your already starting to lose interest

Played through most of Butcher in one sitting over the weekend on a whim (a rare thing for me, but it's a short game). That game is pretty good but the difficulty definitely ramps up pretty steeply at the end.

Castlevania Advance Collection is dope af. Just finished Maxim Mode on Harmony of Dissonance. Two games down, two to go for the platinum.

Succubus.

Never has a game fully encapsulated an aesthetic that is completely relevant to my interests.

For me, I'd say F1 2021, the only thing that I personally don't like about it is being Simcade which feels much like a PlayStation/Xbox console game in my personal opinion.

This is why I prefer Assetto Corsa Competizione, iRacing, Assetto Corsa and Automobilista 2.

The Forgotten City deserves all of the praise it got earlier this year on the various gaming podcasts. There's a chance it could suffer from lore/gimmick fatigue - it's yet another game about ancient mythologies and time loops, after all - but the writing, voice performances and snappiness of the loop solutions are truly well done. Just when it seems like you're going to hit a wall it feels like the entire game opens up all at once and it's appropriately overwhelming just how much is just beneath the surface. It doesn't hurt that those moments even feel like a bit of metacommentary about the ubiquity of certain video game tropes as well...

Guardians of the Galaxy was a really fun B-game with A-game graphics. I'd honestly love to see Eidos Montreal get a hack at a sequel because so much of what they went for here was almost what you'd want but fell just short. Amounted to a game that was both shockingly competent considering the pre-release murmurs about it and yet decidedly lacking in just about every aspect as well. Just a really interesting game to experience, especially if like me most of your gaming time is spent playing these games in the Naughty Dog mold of storytelling and progression design.

Replaying Red Dead II on PS5...this really is just the best game to get lost in and let wash over you. Especially wild played side by side with Guardians, even discarding the difference between an open world vs. linear storytelling structure...just a handful of visits back to camp in RDR2 vs. a few discussions in the Melano cabin is jaw dropping in terms of relative scope and complexity. I firmly believe RDR2 was the end result of some dark magic, and removed from The Discourse I'm not sure I caer nearly as much about my qualms with the second half of the game's story as I did in 2018. The game is just a miracle of performance both technical and voice/writing, even if the plot itself is acutely circular.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon.

Like Judgement, its a great game in the Yakuza universe. The turn based gameplay is really well done. The main character is likeable. The story is engaging and the sidequests are fun. I even liked the business management mini-game which I finished by getting my business to shareholder number 1 rank. I hope they bring it back in the sequel. If anyone is skeptical because of the change in gameplay, where its a traditional JRPG instead of a Brawler, don't worry. They do such a good job with the transition, like how Atlus did a great job adapting the Persona gameplay into a Musou game with Persona 5 Strikers, while still maintaining the personality and charm of the series. YLAD does the same thing.

For now, just "Crash Bandicoot: On the Run". The game is fun, but the grinding to get materials in order to defeat the bosses can be very tedious.

Phasmophobia still slaps.

@dareitus: totally. The recent updates have been so dang good too. Just a blast to play with a good group.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon. I'm 20 hours in and the job system has breathed some much needed life into the super-simple fighting system. I'm a little torn. I prefer deeper and more strategic (turn-based) battles but there are SO MANY encounters it would be very annoying if it weren't so quick and easy to win.

The characters are likable but the story had lost almost all momentum it built up after the prologue. I enjoyed the starting premise but so far anything that isn't about Ichiban and his personal relationship has been mediocre to bad. Ichiban and friends carry the game - even Yokohama itself is a little boring.

The mini games are among the best in the franchise and I have been enjoying all of them.

So overall I miss the old fighting but Ichiban and friends work much better as replacements for Kiryu than Yagami (from Judgment) and I am overall enjoying my time with the game. But the dungeon in chapter 6 shows everything that can go wrong with RPGs. It is incredibly dull, looks terrible, and feels like it will never end. It's just floor after floor with uninspired encounters, brown textures, and copy-pasted corridors. I had no problems with the boss at the end, but I don't know if I can handle another 'dungeon' like that.

Perhaps I'll just keep playing the surprisingly fun (albeit simple) management game... It reminds me of the management games in Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 2 and is quite addictive.

Deathloop: Was on sale for ~$35 on PSN a week ago and decided I wanted to be in on the conversation come GotY time. I think I'm gonna be fine with it ultimately being a very linear game, I was never really able to convince myself Dishonored would be any fun if none of the enemies were dead, y'know? Writing and voice acting seems like it's a real cut above everything else this year as well.

Disco Elysium Final Cut: Decided instead of picking up where I left off on Day 3 back in May I'd just create an entirely opposite character and play again. I'd been a mopey, self-aggrandizing empath in my previous playthrough, whereas now I'm playing a physical specimen with incredible cop skills but very few people skills or really any self-reflection at all and it's really, really cool how differently the game has panned out. Sure, some of this just has to do with knowing what to do now, but I had completed the first steps of most of the mainland questlines before I even needed to go to bed and arrived at those solutions in slightly different ways than I had before. I really think this might be a "revisit once a year" type game for me for a long time.

The Forbidden City: I get why some critics consider this game a little reductive, ultimately, and I'm really not sure where I sit on who the designer of the Golden Rule is, but...the developers definitely got a wow out of me when all was revealed. I'm also not the best puzzler out there so I really appreciated just how fine the balance between simple and clever this game was: the only time I needed a guide was when I couldn't find a set of keys that was dangling right next to the door I needed them for. Arguably too simple, LOL! I got the 3rd and 4th endings and decided I didn't want to go back to get the 1st or 2nd; I get why this was the talk of the town in late summer, especially if you're a parent (I'm not) because it's so digestable. Immediately recommended it to a coworker.

Ghost of Tsushima: Yo, coming back to this game after two years away on NG+ Lethal+ - highly unrecommended! This game is kicking my goddamn ass right now, bot woah is it ever gorgeous in 4K/60 on PS5. The Dualsense integration is really cool and sometimes so subtle you can forget it's happening, the most natural use of the haptics I've seen so far. Plus, being a big dumb open world with endless little quests to complete that I've already completed once before makes this quite a podcast game!

That moment when you assume you're nearing the end of Last of Us 2, when you realize you're only half way through.

Dang.

Rocket League Season 5 just dropped, futuristic space themed, lots of great Rocket Pass unlocks, I'd say it's the best so far...though the car that came with Season 2 (which escapes me at the moment) is better than the Nexus which debuted today.

Shin Megami Tensei V has been such a pleasant surprise. Excellent combat system as always, with a bunch of cool new environments and mobility. Hell yeah.

Pretty much just started Inquisitor; Martyr. I am just loving it for the atmosphere, and am doing pretty good at the moment, though I suspect I am missing stuff.

But it does 40,0000 Ad, Dawn of War pretty well, with asides about the Emperor, and frequent mentions of dystopia, dysfunction and decline. Despite all that, The Inquisitor hangs there and and fights the Daemons, Heretics and Agents of Chaos. I'm sure I will see Orcs somewhere in the game, if I am still playing it.

Gameplay is a Diablo like looter, and seems totally fine.

Bright Memory Infinite.

Buying the demo last year was a good move. This game is pretty dope; even though the vibe is more on the serious/generic espionage side and not Shadow Warrior's irreverence.

I was looking at the Switch eShop and discovered that there was some new, free Wargroove DLC. I loved playing through the original Wargroove so I picked it up immediately. I was disappointed at first to see it was co-op centered, and I didn't have anyone else to play with. However, it turns out it's just as fun as the original campaign, even single-player. You just control both armies. This game is just... charming. It doesn't take itself seriously at all, and the writing is just very silly and fun. I just wish it was longer. Now that I've got a serious Advance Wars-like itch, I might pick up Tiny Metal.

I'm playing Assetto Corsa Competizione, iRacing and F1 2021 at this moment.

I finally got my hands on a Series X last week, and of course one of the first things I did was download Subnautica so I could finally play it at 60FPS. I've played it on the PS4, XBOX One, and Switch, but getting to experience it at pretty close to ultra PC settings has been awesome. One of the most exciting things about getting the Series X is playing a bunch of older games at FPS rates I could only get on PC's I could never afford. I've also been playing through Far Cry 6 and 2K21, as they came with the console since the only way I could get one was in a bundle. Also hoping to start Tales of Arise soon.

I've also been playing a bunch of Animal Crossing, since I had to restart my island when I got the Switch OLED, and replaying through all the Danganronpa games, as the remastered collection was just released last month. Seriously some of the most underrated games of the last generation. I downloaded Monster Hunter Rise but have yet to play it. It's gonna be a busy next few months.

Mass Effect on the Legendary Edition

They made the shooting not absolute bollocks I think, which is nice

I really like the grappleshot in Halo Infinite to a ridiculous and excessive degree.

I'm playing some Dicey Dungeons and i'm very impressed with it's systems. There are some very interesting interactions between the abilities and each character adds it's own twist. The amount of content in the game seems pretty well thought out as well. You can get through an episode in 15-20 minutes, but the sheer amount of characters & episodes means that you'll be booting up this thing all month long to get through it all.

GTA Online.

Despite wishing that Rockstar could have the option to include bots for missions that "require" other people, playing it solo/invite only is more viable than I thought, especially compared to when GTAV was new. Not that I'm not enjoying grinding since I started last week and I'm almost at level 60, but being able to consistently complete the Cayo Perico Heist will really make all of the time spent worth while.

I'm most of the way through "A Plague Tale: Innocence" which a friend recommended and I scooped up via Game Pass. I'm really enjoying it - the story, world-building, graphic design and voice acting is all really strong and I'm having a fun time going through it. The gameplay itself is pretty boiler plate and the puzzles are pretty straighforward with no real heavy thinking involved - so it's not doing much from the 'game' side of things. However, I'm still having a good time with it

Just recently replayed Firewatch after a couple of years, and even though the end reveal ends up being a bit of a ‘I guess *shrug shoulders*‘, as a character piece between these two damaged souls, I fell in love with it all over again. The performances in this are just so goddamn good.

That being said though, I couldn’t in good conscience ship Henry and Delilah. Anyone who has played it knows the right answer is to make Henry go back to Julia, even if it was going to be a hard as fuck thing to do.

I'm about 20 hours deep into Mass Effect 2 and loving it. I played ME2 when it first came out but didn't get too far because life got in the way. When the Legendary Edition came out I knew it was finally time to get back to it and finally finish the trilogy.

Breath of Fire 1 is really cool. I had not heard of this JRPG before and started playing it on SNES Online. The main character can even turn into a dragon! You do have to unlock that ability.

@ginormous76: BoF is a decent series and it's a shame they aren't making more of them. BoF4 is one of my favorite non-Square-Enix JRPGs.

When life gives you lemons of a lousy storyline and incredibly boring mission design, you make lemonade out of what ya can. Watch Dogs: Legion has become my celebrity lookalike finder game and current addiction. Too bad there's no option to copy and rename characters allowing you to fully customize their abilities and what weapons they carry. Solid foundation, just...like the last one, doesn't really know how to build on it in a compelling manner.

Back in Breath of The Wild, and yep. It's still one of the best games i have ever played. Still discovering new stuff 5 years later is such a feat not many games that arent live service games can boast about.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

My cheeky Dark Magician deck is ret to go without having spent money.