Discussion What are you currently playing? (Week 22 of 2023)

[Cacher]

New week, new thread! What are you playing?

Continuing my journey in Tears of the Kingdom. Went to Kakariko Village, the Plateau, tunnel under Hyrule Castle and explored some areas in the depth during the week. Not much to share despite being contently surprised by how packed this game is. I should be able to improve my battery very soon and will start on making my own vehicles to travel around.

Also got back into tinkering some Japanese visual novels on the deck, which I shared in the other thread. Already got some games running so I will focus on one or two to switch between Zelda.

 

[lashman]

Halls of Torment

 

[BaoLunia]

APICO

Such a relaxing beekeeping sim.

 

[Acidote]

I've stopped playing Tears of the Kingdom for the time being. I want to save it for my holidays. For now I'll take a few "days off" from gaming until this little indie game called Diablo 4 gets released.

 

[Parsnip]

Started Baba is You.

I meant to start God of War, but part of me kind of wants to keep pushing big AAA games further out, because I kind of want to play them at even higher res and even higher framerate.
I have the RTX 3070 and it's totally a fine card and all, but I want more. It's a disease.

The good news is that I don't really have the money to buy a new GPU (though that doesn't stop me from looking at them occasionally, playing with fire), and I would probably need to buy a new PSU too just to be on the safe side, and maybe to get the best performance from a 4080 or 4090 (and it would have to be one of those two to get a significant enough boost to feel good about) or whatever I would also need to upgrade my CPU. So, that's a lot of money I don't have.

But yeah, I keep thinking about putting God of War back in to the backlog again, we'll see how that goes. Maybe I should check the DF PC video again to refresh my memory a bit about what I could expect from it.

 

[Stevey]

Started a new game of Elden Ring, so good.

 

[Ascheroth]

Just finished Trails to Azure today, which I didn't expect (but it was great), so I'm a bit unprepared.
Definitely gonna be doing the current Genshin main event which has been pretty fun so far, and possibly some card-gaming since the in-game TCG got a chonky update. Probably gonna round up Sable as well since I'm pretty far into that one.
Other than that I'm most likely gonna continue one or more of Muv-Luv Alternative, Utawarerumono Mask of Truth or Persona 5. Or maybe something completely different will catch my attention, lol. We shall see!

 

[Li Kao]

Finally finished a game ! In this case it was Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia (Emu NDS). 46h and change
I'm glad I insisted, the franchise does a good epic fantasy with tints of grey. But man, two games in and I'm tired of the game throwing everything and the kitchen sink at the player in the last battle. Fucking tough.

Now continue the Archanea saga or skip to modern episodes... I'm conflicted. I really liked these two first games (or well, remakes) but I don't think I have it in me to play 12 fucking episodes.

 

[Durante]

I'm still playing Zelda, it continues to impress me both in terms of the volume of content and in how well they integrate all the various systems they put into the game.

 

[Li Kao]

Nearly finished with Paranormasight. I apparently just have to follow a guide to the final secret ending.
The praises the game got is beyond me. It's extremely mundane.

 

[DrShrapnel]

Guardians of the Galaxy: I think it’s interesting how they handled this. I can only play as Star Lord, but can command my teammates to perform particular moves that have a cool down timer. It’s very different. Having to utilize my teammate’s abilities to navigate the stages is also a welcome touch.
The star of the show is easily the banter between characters. Loving every bit of it.

Vermintide 2: Reinstalled this as I’m itching to revisit it, on the side.

 

[Ascheroth]

Or maybe something completely different will catch my attention, lol.

It was this
Played through Hue, which was free a bit ago and it was a nice change of pace. Not too long, relaxing atmosphere, puzzles varied but not too difficult and a good dose of platforming to keep things interesting.
Now I've started Spiritfarer and so far I'm really enjoying it.

 

[bobnowhere]

Destiny 2 - Beyond Light

No Straight Roads

 

[Li Kao]

So yeah, Paranormasight finished, all endings.

My Steam review :

Not worth much.
The game was stealth released and had a sympathetic aura, it reviewed well and I'm sure many liked it, but alas, I can't go there.
Production value is very weak, with only an handful of backgrounds, there was no voice budget either, the pace is relatively glacial... and, far more problematic, the writing is not good enough, characters are linked together by connections that just feel there to help the plot stand up, and when all is said and done, the whole thing is convoluted.
Not to mention each endings feel very rushed, unsatisfying.
It's still a sympathetic game, it's a VN from a publisher that don't do them often, there are a handful of nice ideas and the art is solid, but it didn't have neither the budget nor the storytelling chops it deserved.

 

[Stevey]

Just finished Boltgun. Really enjoyed it, bit tough at times, but the most fun I've had this year.

 

[Li Kao]

Against my better judgement, I started a new game. Warhammer Boltgun.

One. It’s good, very solid, nothing to rant against. And yet. I don’t love it. I guess it lacks that certain magical something that makes a must play. But yeah, it’s good.

Two. Difficulty is funky, there are very tough moments.

Three. I’m pretty sure I read some reviewers lamenting about the maze like level design, and thinking those heatens lacked good taste, not their fault
Yeah no, sorry to be a judgmental dick, you were right. Starting with chapter 2 some levels are so messed up it genuinely hurt the experience, like ‘should I got that way ? Hey might as well, I have no idea were I am anyways’.

Four. If we invent time travel, I call dibs to meet the first person to implement arenas encounters in an fps, and slap them silly.

Very good time, not incredible.

 

[hersheyfan]

Been a while since I posted on MC, heh!

Still playing Tears of the Kingdom on NSW, still getting blown away by its quality. It's an Elden Ring situation here, where I already know that none of the other GotY hopefuls are getting remotely close (IMO of course).

And speaking of the "other guys"...
I'm waiting on Street Fighter 6 Steam key from CDKeys, and Diablo IV is preloading on my XSX (wanted to avoid bnet this time around). Both are playable this Friday.

I dont think I've ever had three games that I've wanted to play so much launch in such rapid succession, this weekend is going to be nuts for games.

 

[LEANIJA]

Against my better judgement, I started a new game. Warhammer Boltgun.

One. It’s good, very solid, nothing to rant against. And yet. I don’t love it. I guess it lacks that certain magical something that makes a must play. But yeah, it’s good.

Two. Difficulty is funky, there are very tough moments.

Three. I’m pretty sure I read some reviewers lamenting about the maze like level design, and thinking those heatens lacked good taste, not their fault
Yeah no, sorry to be a judgmental dick, you were right. Starting with chapter 2 some levels are so messed up it genuinely hurt the experience, like ‘should I got that way ? Hey might as well, I have no idea were I am anyways’.

Four. If we invent time travel, I call dibs to meet the first person to implement arenas encounters in an fps, and slap them silly.

Very good time, not incredible.

I actually feel pretty much the same about Boltgun. It is Enjoyable, highly so, with some caveats (as you listed them: difficulty is weird, level layouts can be confusing, arenas arent my thing either. )

Apart from that, Im playing
· World of Warcraft: every now and then. They have a Diablo crossover right now where you get some items when you defeat a goblin that spawns every half hours, and lots of people show up for an absolute cacophony of screen effects ^^ So I log in for those, do some quests inbetween, do another goblin, some more quests, another goblin, and then its enough WOW again

· LOTR War in the North: since I was so tempted to buy LOTR Gollum despite all the reviews I reinstalled this game instead and played it a bit. Holds up well, I think. Plays well on Deck. Still kinda wanna play Gollum despite it obviously being a stinker (i watched the livestream they had on the store page, it really is a mess)

· System Shock: very good start; also plays well on Deck but the interface is way too small. Unsure if there is an option to zoom in, I had trouble reading stuff. But Im not really one to play First Person games with a controller anyway

generally tho, I dont play a lot these days.

 

[Ascheroth]

Did play Muv-Luv Alternative after all, and even finished it
That saga (Extra -> Unlimited -> Alternative) was really, really, really good. A bit long-winded at times, but overall a great experience. I'm particularly impressed by the action scenes. They did a tremendous job making everything look really dynamic. It almost feels like watching an anime.
Still have Photonflowers and Photonmelodies left to read, though I'm not sure I'll read them immediately. And then I guess there's Total Eclipse and The Day After?