Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of January 14th

Trying to play Alan Wake 2. Trying as in no time but still try to make a bit of time for it.

Hellblade II is almost certainly coming out this year, perhaps very soon, so I got Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice for a few dollars on the recent Steam sale. It's certainly a looker, but I would prefer if the mechanics were a bit more sophisticated. Maybe it'll get there, but I'm a few hours in now, and I'm pretty sure I've seen the entire loop. The combat and puzzle mechanics are both what I'd call serviceable, but it's really the presentation in this game that they knocked out of the park, yet I still don't know if that's enough for me to give the game a glowing recommendation, even if I am enjoying the game.

I'm still making progress in Pillars of Eternity ahead of Avowed's release, finally getting into some of the White March content, around level 6. The game remains great, but my biggest criticism thus far is still that the intended player level for a given area or quest should be better communicated. I end up timidly doing the stuff that I'm confident is around my level rather than the content that appears to be most interesting to me at the time.

Some friends and I started up a co-op game of Quake II in the remaster, and holy cow, this is so much better than our time in the first Quake, due in no small part to that compass feature they added. The era of FPS games I'm most into would be the era just beyond Quake II's initial release, and the biggest difference, I'd say, between those two eras in level design is that the older "boomer shooters" would let you get lost in a maze while their successors would close off access to most of the areas that you don't need to bother with yet/anymore, alleviating frustration. It also just feels so much better right out of the gate than the previous Quake, and the levels are somewhat trying to approximate a space that would exist in a fiction created for the game rather than just being a vague labyrinth with monsters in it.

In another co-op group, I'm in the early hours of Titan Quest, as a way of dipping my toes into the loot game genre, which I hadn't really had a taste for in the past. I figured with the sequel on the way, and no desire to touch Diablo with a ten foot pole, this would be a good time to do it. We just had to fight a centaur that I'm not sure whether it counts as a boss or not; hopefully bosses in this game are more interesting than that one was, because with the skills we had access to in the early game (not many), the fight was mostly just running around in circles and taking shots at him when we could without getting pummeled.

You've seen everything Hellblade has to offer in the combat department. I enjoyed it personally; it's really slick in its simplicity, but you are right that it's not the main draw. Hellblade shines in its performances, journey, and presentation, like you said. Some of the set pieces are just striking in the best (and worst) ways.

It's a really effective and unique experience overall.
I bounced pretty hard of Hellblade. The combat frustrated me to no end. It felt like it was just tacked on to an otherwise puzzle focused game.

Monster Hunter World. Spectacular game and seems to be having a second wind right now is player base.

Been playing Dishonored for the first time and really enjoying it. I’m only at the bridge and trying to play a low/no kill game. I’m not succeeding just yet, but it’s been really enjoyable and they do stealth really well. I’m baffled that they mismanaged to get the team that made this and Prey to push out Redfall? Man.

Just picked up FFVII after the second or third hiatus or my third or fourth attempt to play it. FINALLY made it to the Nibelheim story and past Midgard. And that somehow still manages to work on me as a first time player.

Just beat Banner Saga 1 and have never felt so much like a failure after “beating” a game. That game is trying to unseat This War of Mine for decisions regretted/minute.

I’m wanting to start up my Nintendo series playthroughs again by either starting Mario Galaxy 2 or trying to remember what on earth was happening in Majora’s Mask (3DS) something about the water temple maybe?

I’m baffled that they mismanaged to get the team that made this and Prey to push out Redfall? Man.

It wasn't actually the same studio, Dishonored was made by Arkane Lyon while Redfall was made by Arkane Austin. Arkane Lyon are the ones working on the upcoming Marvel's Blade game, however.
- So Prey team made Redfall and Dishonored team is making the new Blade game? Good to know!

I've been grinding that Diablo 4 and enjoying it a lot.

After I finished the campaign, I made it to World Tier 4 (highest difficulty) pretty quickly, and I'm now level 97. I fulfilled my dream of becoming a bear that punches millions of demons, so that's pretty cool. Although I can't be a bear all the time though, which is pretty lame. In town, I'm forced to run around as a boring human.

The next season begins in 10 days, and I don't know if there's a short break in between. Level 100 should definitely be possible, and a few other "milestones," but I don't know if I manage to do everything I'd like to.

In Diablo 3, I'd usually play at the start of a season for a few weeks, and then take a break until the next one, so I never burned myself out on it. Since I started Diablo 4 at the tail end of the season, I'll probably end up playing a lot longer than I'd usually do, so burn out is definitely possible for me. A new character should hopefully freshen things up enough, and a friend might also play with me.

Network performance was much better this week, although there are still some hiccups here and there, mainly during the Legion events.

Unless they change it with the upcoming season, there's no downtime between seasons for Diablo 4 like there is with 3, but they do give you the whole season to sort through your inventory in the eternal realm instead of just 30 days.
- You mean when your seasonal characters become non-season and your items are mailed to you? In the beginning I was sorting through stuff, still keeping some items, but later I just destroyed almost everything, since I don't play non-season anyway, so I'll probably do the same here.
  
  It sucks, that there's apparently no rebirth feature, like D3 had. I liked playing essentially the same characters over and over again from level 1, and not having to delete them and make a new one.

Just finished Observer: System Redux. It's a cyberpunk/horror game made by a Polish studio. They did a good job using the medium to create a sense of dread and foreboding.

Also playing Aurora, the free 4x most people compare to Dwarf Fortress. A new release came out a few weeks ago and it's fun to learn the new mechanics.

Oh yeah with Rutger Hauer. I've been meaning to play that, I have it in my steam library. Thanks for the reminder.

Quake Champions, still my fav shooter

Trying The Last of Us on PC. The TAA in this game is atrocious, everything is a smear fest

Neverwinter Nights on my phone. Third or fourth playthrough (first ones were on PC). Absolutely cooks the battery, but entertains for hours while travelling as long as I can plug in. I really wish BeamDog would have spent a little more time optimizing it.

Next will be Icewind Dale and will be my first playthrough I think. Then I might go back to NWN for some of the community quests.

Do the NWN games offer better combat feedback than the 2e Infinity Engine games? It was a real pain point in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (especially 2) that it would just tell me something didn't work without telling me why it didn't work, and modern RPGs will show you the full dice rolls so that you can understand why.
- You can show the log and see dice rolls.

Sinking even more hours of my life into Path of Exile. Also been playing some Cobalt Core on my steam deck I got for Christmas.

Firing up the old PS2 and playing some Odin Sphere

EDF5, the one true patriotism game. Can't wait for EDF6 localisation.

Recently started playing Wayfinders. It's not a 10/10 MMO, but it's still fun and has potential

Bloodborne - barely remember anything from the last time I played it. It’s still so good even with 30fps and meh graphics. The very first area (central yharnam) is better than anything in LotF, so good.

Diablo 4: Season 2 - Nightmare dungeons galore.

Diablo 3: Season 30 - Season 30 started this week, so I've been working on leveling up my monk and completing Chapter 1 objectives.

Alan Wake 2 - Finished the game, and now I'm debating on going thru again on The Final Draft (aka new game plus) instead of moving on to Dead Space. I heard the beginning and end were slightly different and that there were extra manuscripts and videos to be found, plus I only have two achievements left, so why not go for 100%? Besides, I loved it. Remedy has been building a universe, and I can't wait to see what they come up with next. There's nothing that I've played from them that I haven't loved so far.

🔦💥

There is a bit towards the end where you play as Alan and you're going through the forest and it had the original music from the first game. I didn't think this game would make me tear up, but it did during that section. I would love to see the original Alan Wake overhauled with the new engine. It would be phenomenal.

Diablo 4: Season 2 - Nightmare dungeons galore.

I've only just started doing the dungeons, since I've only been playing for two weeks, but so far I'm not a big fan. It feels like there's only a few environments, not enough monster density, and the occasional backtracking is also boring (pretty short though, to be fair).

Diablo 3 has technically even less variety with its rifts, since it's just kill demons until a boss spawns, but it's just packed, and I loved blasting through tons of enemies. Although in a multiplayer session, when one player is just destroying everything at mach 2, and you're just waddling behind them, that's arguably worse (I played mostly solo or some friends, doing public sessions to farm bounties or materials).

The open world events, Helltide or Blood Harvest are a bit like the D3 rifts, just not as many enemies, but still really fun. It's a bummer that you can't just keep doing that, if you want to keep progressing your character.

Getting better Sigils is kind of a pain, since it's just RNG drops. I could easily do higher tier dungeons, but have to wait for them to drop. At least you're kinda guaranteed to get at least one Sigil on your current level I guess, so you don't have to move down. Now that I'm writing this, I gotta check if I can craft some higher tier ones, last time I was missing some materials, maybe it's not as bad.
- Yeah I'm not a huge fan of the Nightmare Dungeons myself; the only reason to go through them is get glyph upgrades. It seems they rotate which dungeons become Nightmare ones each season, so I've been slowly working on a list of which I can go through the fastest so I can focus on other stuff.
  iirc the Tree of Whispers is a guaranteed drop for sigils, but from what I've found they're usually lower tiered then what I want so I end up salvaging them anyway.

Tribal Wars. They came over Steam.
CastleClicker on mobile.
Path of Exile and Blade & Sorcery over VR.

Alan Wake 2. I'll spare any commentary on all the things it does well and that make it a one of the most ambitiously distinctive (AAA) games...ever? because that's been well covered.

On the other hand, I am kinda surprised that the combat is as... deficient as it is. I never liked the combat experience in the first game. I don't like how the enemies were programmed to run off screen to the sides of view, because Alan isn't nimble enough to pivot direction sufficiently to track multiple enemies, and it just felt cheap and frustrating. Dodging is clunky too.

Control was the next Remedy game I played, and I thought the combat in that game was fantastic. The gunplay felt right, and the paranormal powers were weighty and responsive. Even the levitate power looks and feels fantastic; the animation is super cool and I love watching it.

So I had high hopes for Alan Wake 2, but the combat again feels too imprecise and unbalanced. Dodging is still clunky, projectiles clip through objects, etc.

Oh well. It's a bummer, but in a game like this it's well overshadowed by the strengths.

Baldur's Gate 3 -Just best Heroic Mode for the first time and got those sweet sweet golden dice.

Im very excited to start a new playthrough and use em!

I've been thinking about giving Diablo 4 another shot... I haven't played since release is the new season any good?

I’ve been thinking about giving Diablo 4 another shot… I haven’t played since release is the new season any good?

I've only played the current season (season 2) and it's very fun. However, it's almost over and the new season starts on the 23rd, so that's probably a better time to go back.
- Good shout! I'll do another honor mode run in BG3 until then

I finished Cassette Beasts a couple of days ago and now I can never go back to Pokémon.

I honestly can't sing its praises enough.

Don't even know if I can play any other monster tamers now. Still, I might pick up Coromon and/or Nexomon: Extinction or something else at some point, but man, Cassette Beasts absolutely spoiled me.

Highly recommend to anyone who'd like some chill vibes (with some dark moments to make for good contrast) and no significant stress in terms of strategy. Like, yeah, it technically matters when it comes to type advantages, but sometimes it's just fun to fuck around and see what fusions you can come up with, regardless of type.

Oh, and if you like games where you aren't restricted to gender norms and can romance anyone of any gender, also a good option.

I feel like if you enjoyed the vibe of games like Stardew Valley or Spiritfarer or (going old school here) Chrono Trigger, you'll probably enjoy this, even if the gameplay is entirely different.

Honestly, even if you enjoy Pokémon but might be sick of it for whatever reason, it's a nice change of pace as well. It has enough in common to feel familiar, but sets itself apart in a bunch of ways which make it stand entirely on its own.

Music is also great, though you might get sick of one song that repeats. And repeats. And repeats.

right now cp 2077 pl

@chloyster Guild Wars 2 World vs World and Ghost Recon Breakpoint (which was on deep discount). The latter appears to have been mostly turned around with regards to its release bugs but I am still in the process of gauging the capability of the enemy AI.
The fact that you can tweak the gameplay details on a scale of "the division Style looter shooter" right up to "almost mil-sim" levels is quite impressive to me.

I tried that return to moria game and it wasn't my style. Felt a little janky, but amazing concept.

I fired up Valheim again and decided to close my eyes, delete my old worlds, and just go for a new solo experience. Having fun.

I started playing No Man's Sky lately, in VR. I played it closer to it release in the past and it couldn't captivate me, but now I'm kinda in a tumultuous period in my life and the simple gathering mechanics make for a calm passtime.

It's so relaxing! Often I like to have an edible while I play that one.
- What do you mean by an edible? Something to munch on?

Hitman.

Fuck the always online shit, but since last time I played they added a rogue lite mode. "Just kill randomly selected NPCs on existing maps" doesn't sound mind blowing (and occasionally a level feels kind of trivial), but the "die and they're on alert, die again and start over without your gear" format combined with limited access to gear really does give a fresh, high stakes feel.

Hitman.

Fuck the always online shit, but since last time I played they added a rogue lite mode. "Just kill randomly selected NPCs on existing maps" doesn't sound mind blowing (and occasionally a level feels kind of trivial), but the "die and they're on alert, die again and start over without your gear" format combined with limited access to gear really does give a fresh, high stakes feel.

So I recently have been playing Cult of the Lamb, a few Doom wads, and had been trying to get some Skyrim mods wokring..

More excitiingly though I was actually approached by this company called Maple Leaf Studio to playtest this game called Realm of Ink. Haven't mentioned it much on my social medias mainly because they had me sign an NDA. The game is quite fun and very pretty, it's kind of like Hades but has this awesome art style themed off of Chinese Mythology.

Now that the demo's public though I'm allowed to talk about it, the link's here if you wanna check it out - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2597080/Realm_of_Ink/