Games you're playing at the years end? And are you enjoying them?

This isn't really referring to your game of the year list, though I suppose it can. I just mean in general, what are you playing the last month of this year? I guess mine will be Ghost Recon Wildlands, Far Cry Primal, and if I can finish Primal before the end, the Zelda DLC that just came out. Ghost Recon Wildlands I got as I was in the middle of Assassin's Creed Origins, and I got Far Cry Primal as it was cheap. I didn't hear much good about them, but I was curious so I got both. I especially love Ghost Recon so I 'had' to get Wildlands. It's good, but it's overlong at this point and the repetition is its biggest drawback which permeates almost every aspect of the game.

The core gameplay and the setting of Bolivia have kept me going. I'm kind of excited to jump into Far Cry Primal honestly, though disappointed now that the Zelda DLC is out because then it'll kind of make me want to hurry through Primal. I don't know if that'll happen. I just hope Ghost Recon doesn't last me too much longer, but my feeling of having to explore every area, which basically means doing the rest of the side missions is holding me back. I'm enjoying it though, so it's not that big of an issue. Alright, so what are you all playing?

Lastly, an off-topic question if you want to answer it, do you guys ever have a game grab your attention and you feel you need to go through it, so you spend a lot of time playing rather than coming on here or other sites? I've been playing Ghost Recon almost every day since the 19th of last month trying to complete it, and I haven't found much time to come on here to discuss or type anything. That's not including my time also feeling the same way about Assassin's Creed Origins.

I've been playing through Nier as I think it will come up in GOTY discussions. I am not liking it at all. Far to much backtracking and the gameplay isn't good. I'm hanging on but mostly due to promise.

Just finished Assassins Creed: Origins which was a pleasant end of year surprise for me.

The last game I really want to finish before GotY, for potential spoiler purposes, is Hellblade. I don't have any money until Christmas, though, so I'll have to wait and pick it up then. Also waiting for the third episode of LiS: Before the Storm to drop so I can figure out where it belongs on my Top 10.

As for your focus question, I tend to do that a lot with longer games and new games that a lot of people are talking about. My thought is always that I just want to get through it as fast as possible in order to get it out of the way; sadly, it almost always means I skip parts of it and don't give it the care and attention it deserves. Hard not to with so many good games this year, though.

I've been playing AC: Origins on PS4 and going blind into TES IV: Oblivion on PC 99% vanilla, with the 1% being unofficial patches. Absolutely love both of them. I'm 60 hours into Origins just doing side content, just a bit longer and I'll finally touch the story. I'm definitely going for 100% and all trophies. With Oblivion i'm around 25 hours in and I love it. It's part of my quest to play TES 3 & 4 this year, since I played very little or none of them when I was a kid so I went in super blind. Both games are taking place in a rather warm climate so that's also a contrast to winter happening in the real world.

Playing AC: Origins as well which is pretty fantastic. Only about 10 hours in, haven't done too many story quests - doing a couple at the moment, but will mix up side content and main stuff. My favourite AC game since AC II.

There was just a big patch for Fidel Dungeon Rescue, so I've been playing more of that. Also, Hellblade and Subsurface Circular.

Right now I've gone back to one of my more recent loves: Castlevania! Going through Dracula's Curse (Castlevania 3) and loving it! It's basically the same gameplay and tough-as-nails difficulty I fell in love with in the first game, plus partners with different gameplay styles and multiple paths to take through the game. I've only unlocked one partner so far, but he already changes up how I think about going through levels in a significant way. And the level design is just as demanding as I remember ^_^ tough, but not cheap to the point that I'm asking myself who designed this nonsense.

I've got Far Cry 3 and Pokemon Pearl on standby, but I doubt I'll finish either by the end of this year. I really do have to make time for Far Cry 3 if I'm gonna cut through my PS3 pile -_-

I'm midway through New Colossus, liking it way more than I thought I would, the story is fantastic! Once I finish it I want to go back to finish Yakuza and Life is Strange, then hopefully I'll have time for Tacoma.

@beachthunder: How's subsurface circular? I've been thinking about getting it, but haven't heard a lot about it aside from Mike Bithell's podcast.

I just started Wolfenstein: The New Order after getting a little more interested in the series from some stuff I've seen of the new one. My first impression wasn't great, the shooting feels good but that first WW2 era level is just boring, once it jumped to the 60s though it really started to click. I'm not that far on, just did got to the hideout after the prison break, but I'm actually getting some pretty strong Half Life 2 vibes from the game which I didn't expect at all. After I finish that I'll go onto the Old Blood then I've got Quantum Break, The Evil Within 2, and Virginia cued up to play next.

I’m trying to finish Nier before the end of the year. I feel it has a few great moments but they’ve been few and far between, the rest feels very grindy to me. Lots of mindless running around doing fetch quests, even in the main path. I don’t think the story is great either, I just started the third playthrough, I might as well finish it.

I’ll try to finish Yakuza 0 after that. I enjoyed the 20 hours or so I’ve played of that quite a bit, so I am looking forward to it.

I've taken up Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse again, and it's a game I've had a weird relationship to. Started out liking it, especially due to mechanical improvements from IV, but later started to really dislike it because it dawned on me how little consequence there is in dying, the characters didn't feel like they belonged to this series and the moral dilemma in the story more or less boils down to either: Friendship is great or fuck friendship and everyone around me. It felt more like something straight out of Persona, which is a series that I love dearly, but it's simply not fitting for a Shin Megami Tensei mainline-game.

Now, I still have those problems, though I've tried to solve atleast the death-problem by deciding on certain-save spots, and not accepting Dagdas revivals unless I died just after I saved, as to keep tension up while dungeoncrawling. I just find everything else gameplay-wise very very enjoyable. I think the fusion-system and demon gathering overall is the best it's ever been, giving you lots of space for demons, maxing out their abilities pretty fast as to make it more attractive to fuse more instead of just hogging the same team through most of the game. We'll see what I think of itafter I've beat it, but right now it's very enjoyable.

I've only played the first few chapters, but I think it's worth a shot if you're interested in talking simulators and cool-looking robots.

Still plucking through Thimbleweed Park, thinking about picking up Hellblade some time soon. I also may buy Pyre for its current sale price, but I'm in no rush to finish it before year's end/GOTY since I'm pretty sure I won't like it or care about spoilers.

@fear_the_booboo: I feel the same way about Nier, especially on the second playthrough. I still can't understand all this praise, some people said I really should play route C and D, but I got tired of it, I'm giving it some time.

I'm trying to get the rest of the moons in Mario Odyssey, finish off Zelda: BOTW (which I've been working on since May after restarting on Switch after playing on Wii U), and finishthe 5 smaller games I have on the go on Switch.

I also just got Skyrim on Switch. Skyrim as a portable game is surprisingly good. I've been enjoying it a ton.

The Switch is great.

I've been playing Persona 5. That game's pretty good! Not as good as P3 or P4 - at least not yet - but I'm enjoying it.

Persona 5. I like the game but it is TOO ****ING LONG! Maybe it's just me, but I legit don't care about virtually any of the characters even half as much as the Persona 4 ones. I think they are generally pretty bland, their side stories boring/uninteresting, and I think the game could have done with 3 less dungeons. Before getting burnt out on it's absurdly long campaign I'd have given it a 4.5/5, at this point I have to go with 3/5.

Mario Odyssey. I am about 7-8 areas deep and totally love it. I have had it on hold while I try to finish off Persona 5, though I will be bringing my Switch with me on vacation next week so I may end up finishing it then. I'm not a big Mario fan, though I did really like the the first 3D one on the 3DS. Super Mario Land 3D?

Battlefront 2. I got this on sale for $30, I really liked the first one, so I figured why not? All I've done is log in to get my daily crates. For real though, you only get 3 items? One of which will always be a miniscule amount of credits, and one that will be a miniscule amount of crafting items? .....sure EA.

Currently running a few, including Wildlands which is my favorite of the games I'm playing now. I can just sink hours into that thing.

Also playing a bit of Rainbow Six Siege and Infinite Minigolf (Siege specifically with friends), as well as AirMech Wastelands on PC.

I've had to finally admit to myself that I probably won't finish Nier: Automata (at least, definitely not this year) and need to decide between starting Assassin's Creed: Origins or Yakuza: Kiwami. I'll probably go for Yakuza to take a break from Open-World Ubisoft after Wildlands. I hit credits sometime late last month in Mario Odyssey so I've taken a break from that but I might pop back in for some moons soon.

Oh fuck, I just realized that I need to finish Wolfenstein, too. I might focus on that this weekend, then.

For the other question: all the time? That seems normal. If I really enjoy a game, I'll most likely want to beat it without getting spoiled or something. That said I usually have something playing in the background (GB videos, bombcast, etc) for some less story-driven games (like 80% of Wildlands is me just collecting things and I love it).

I just finished up Rise of the Tomb Raider, uninstalled it, and immediately regretted it because I want to jump back in and mop up even more stuff that just really doesn't matter. That's a really good - and smartly designed - game. Today, I started a bit of Steamworld Dig 2, which looks awesome, and I'm hoping to get around to Walking Dead's third season.

I finally got around to playing Nier Automata (after spending $30 on and playing the first Nier because I'm crazy and can't bring myself to play sequels without playing the original first).

Automata was one hell of an experience. All the praise it got when it came out was totally deserved as far as I'm concerned. The core gameplay was similar to the first one but more much polished and enjoyable, and the story and characters were as crazy, over the top, endearing, and engaging as I was told they were.

Japanese games sure knocked it out of the park this year. I honestly can't remember the last time 4 of my top 5 games of the year were Japanese developed. (Persona, Nier, Zelda, and Mario along with Horizon as the lone western game in my top 5). I still have a few significant 2017 games I haven't gotten to yet that I'l like to play (Wolfenstein II, Divinity 2, Cuphead, and Edith Finch), but they'd have to be pretty great to supplant any of those 5.

As for what's next, I'm playing the Zelda DLC that just came out and I've started Divinity. That is, the first Divinity Original Sin. Like I said, I have a problem playing sequels without playing the original, so before I play Divinity 2 I need to play the first one. Of course, that's a game I've wanted to play since it came out and never got around to it. It getting what most seem to think is an even better sequel was the perfect motivation I needed to finally pick it up.

I just finished the latest South Park. I thought it was ok, but unless you are a die-hard fan, or haven’t played the first one, then I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. I have been catching up on Hitman too – there’s the new campaign to complete, and I just bagged the 2^nd of the reactivated elusive targets that I missed the first time around. I have yet to play Assassin’s Creed Origins, so I think that might be the final game I play this year.

To answer your other question - it is unusual for a game to grab my attention to the extent that I massively deviate from my normal routines, but it has happened more than normal this year due to unusually high number of amazing games. February and March were especially bad (or do I mean good?) months as I played Hollow Knight followed by Zelda and I absolutely loved both.

I'd like to finish Horizon, Uncharted: LL, Zelda, and Odyssey by Xmas. Will I? Probably not.

I'm not going to dump them all in the thread, but I recently made a list of games I want to finish before I buy anything released in 2018. It's 17 games.

I buy too many games.

This is kinda my favorite time of year cause this is when I get most of my games with Black Friday deals and whatnot. I’ve been playing Persona 5 on and off this year but it’s just now starting to click for me 25 hours in (yowza). I’ve got Horizon, Nier, and Mario queued up next or if I get fatigued by Persona and need a break.

I am tempted to get Edith, Hellblade, and Prey since they’re on sale again. So many good games.

I was stuck on a fence between Xenoblade 2 and the newest Y's game for the past few days. After about 10 hours apiece I jumped into Y's full time and if it keeps up like it has so far I'd give it my goty over P5. It's been really, really good. Falcom has just been on top of their game the past few years.

@totsboy: Yeah I can’t understand the praise either. The beginning of the third playthrough is pretty awful in terms of mechanics, so I wouldn’t really recommend it.

I’m also somewhat annoyed that most story revelations are obvious from the get go but it takes the game 15 or more hours to acknowledge them. I’ll push through hoping the end of the game will redeem some of it but I guess I need to accept Nier is not for me.

I just got a bunch of games in various sales so I have too much on my plate. Focusing on Hellblade and Hollow Knight mainly But I also started Dream Daddy, Battle Chef Brigade, and installed Echo but haven't started yet. I really like Hellblade so far, the combat isn't great so I bumped it down to easy but the story and immersion are top notch.

I am 100% with you on this. I am 50 hours in and, while I started out loving it, I just want to be done. If I am understanding correctly I'm only about half way through. Ugh..

@citizencoffeecake: Glad I'm not alone, and I really don't think it's just a case of me never going to feel the same about a Persona game after my first one, 4. And yeah, I'm in the final Palace and I'm approaching 90 hours. I wasn't rushing, but I also wasn't being super slow about it. One issue I have too is that in later sections of the game you go long stretches with no safe rooms, so heaven forbid you get a game over, you'll have to repeat some rather length and overall unenjoyable sections. The story does get cranked up a few notches soon though, so I'd definitely say keep going!

Right now Yakuza 0 and Divinity: Original Sin 2. Also chipping away at Bravely Default when I feel like some handheld action

Both are grade A stuff, enjoying every minute of both and don't want to rush it. Considering that I've been playing D:OS2 since october, probably not going to get much else in.

realistically I won't get much of my list chopped off in time for GotY, so probably won't listen to them to avoid Spoilers for stuff I intend to play (like mario)

why not reinstall? If it's on Steam, there's probably a cloud save of your game. Just sayin you don't have to move on if you don't wanna.

I recently finished that hot and totally recent release, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, which was mostly inspired by my completion of Ninja Gaiden Black. (I went with Sigma because vanilla NG2 isn't backwards compatible on Xbox One.) Boy howdy, they sure did make that game a lot easier. I'm not going to complain too much, since it still plays very well, but after struggling my way through NGB I felt like I was almost cheating with Sigma 2.

I'm going to start Assassin's Creed: Origins and Uncharted Lost Legacy this weekend. That's realistically all I'll be able to get through this year....maybe not even.

Lost interest in Frozen Wildlands. Still enjoying WWE 2K18 despite some annoyances with repeating reversal animations (too many god damned kneeling fireman's carries)....I need to get my universe roster finished before the New Year. Battlefront II has been good fun once I unlocked better weapons, almost finished with the Assault class. Finally playing through Uncharted 4, on Crushing to work my way towards the plat, much better movie than game. I'll probably start on Watch dogs 2 soon, but may jump back into the first since I now have PS+ and see if there's enough people still playing to knock out those few online trophies I need. Gonna try to pick up Metroid and something else for 3DS this weekend during Best Buy's B1G150% sale, will play that or try to jump back into Breath of the Wild on Wii Uand use that to help me stay awake while I try to make my way through my backlog of DC shows and Supernatural which have all fell into c-tier television these days.

@capum15: It feels like more than 80 percent. Well, I think I'm going to finish it tonight though. I have two more sections to clear, which are the small, furthest lower right locations on the map and I did everything in the game. Although, I did just stop doing the green side missions last night unless they don't prove to be too big of a waste of time. At this point, I have just about everything unlocked and the weapons I have are the best guns you can get for the normal weaponry you collect in the world so I'm more or less booking it from one point to another, perhaps using a helicopter to go faster. After I am done typing this up, or reading the rest of the comments, I'll be off to finish it so I can start Primal.

The Zelda DLC doesn't sound terribly inspired (or at least, not different from the base game in the ways I want it to be), so I'm probably done for the month. There are dozens of games that'd still be worth playing but I'm not in the mood for any of them now, so Splatoon 2 is likely to be the main thing for me until Monster Hunter World next year.

Still Max Payne 3, the multiplayer mostly. I had a few others I was playing, but they weren't that interesting.

Finished Nier a few days ago, I have mixed feelings on it.

Just started Prey.

Finished nier automata recently and thought it was very good. Didn't totally come together for me in the end, but still enjoyed it a lot.

Just started nioh, and I'm not really digging the combat compared to the souls games. Gotta give it more time though since I'm very early on.

I just started Assassin's Creed Origins and I'm really impressed with the world they've created. It might be the best looking game I've ever played and raises the bar pretty high for Red Dead 2 next year. Typical Ubisoft map full of icons, but I'm enjoying exploring the environments and marveling at the architecture. You can tell they took a lot of cues from The Witcher 3.

@anonymous_jesse: It never gets good.

I'm in the exact same boat. Put off AC Origins to jump into Nier so I don't get too spoiled on it. 11 hours in and it hasn't grabbed me yet.

Dang, I started playing Ghost Recon Wildlands six and a half hours ago? I finished it, but jeez, I guess doing two small areas through to the finish took that long. Glad it's over. It was a good game, but I'll probably never play it again honestly. I'd rather replay Future Soldier, or either of the G.R.A.W. games if they come onto backward compatibility on the One. Well, onto Far Cry Primal.

I am playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3D on the n2DS and I am not quite sure what to make of it (currently I am in the mines below Colony 6). What mostly keeps me going is the excellent combat and the team-building aspects. But unless something game changing is going down soon I might just bail.

Meanwhile, I arived at what I assume is the final dungeon of A Link Between Worlds, but apparently that's just a boss rush anyway so I put that on the back burner. Up to that point the game was pretty good though.

Will probably play more Odyssey, but also I just started playing Golf Story and Battle Chef Brigade on Switch. Digging all three games right now.

On my PC I am rotating between Hand of Fate 2, which is fun but challenging in a good way, and Shadowhand, which is a solid solitary rpg mix and the level of complexity I needed to take a dive on that companies brand of 'solitaire but more than.." Highly recomend anyone who seems interested in either to check them out.

Also making very slow progress (as in about 1 level a session) in AC on my PS4, still in the initial area, just hoping around for 15-30 minutes a go and having a lot of fun with it. Nothing to write home about, but I like the combat and the setting and the characters so far. Only complain I have is I really want the direction pad to move around the menus, instead of sending me too the store. I have never been a fan of porting mouse-style controls into consoles. And er, if that whole 'move the cursor with the analog stick' is cribbed right out of the console version of Destiny as everyone says this AC menu is (wouldn't know, have never played destiny) then..I highly disaprove of them using it too I guess.

I've been playing a couple of old SNES games that I never got the chance to play.

All my friends have raved about how great Stardew Valley is ever since it came out, and a lot of that praise came back when it was ported to Switch recently. I got interested to play it, but don't really have money to spend on a new game, so I decided to give a try to Harvest Moon on SNES, since that's basically the aesthetic Stardew Valley is going for. I thought I wasn't going to be that into it, since I had tried to play a Harvest Moon before ("A New Beginning" on 3DS), and got burnt out on it before the tutorial even finished. It turns out that the original SNES game doesn't really even have a tutorial, and just lets you do whatever you feel like doing right off the bat, and it's GREAT. It's a super addictive chill-out game. I have to keep track of my play sessions to make sure I don't lose to much time to it.

I also decided to finally try Secret of Mana, just because the box art and all the other promo art I ever saw for that game was SO PRETTY. I haven't played a whole lot of it yet, but it seems pretty enjoyable just from the first hour or two.

The last game I'm finishing up before 2018 is Observer and that games kind of nuts, but it's not gonna make it into my top 10 (even though im enjoying it quite alot) just because this years been a insane year for good games.

@tylerhendrix: You could just wait for the Secret of Mana remake that's coming out.