What game are you wasting time on?

[Krivol]

I've just finished Atom RPG. It's great game, I haven't played Underrail yet so I can't tell if Atom is the best RPG of last 10 years, but it's definitely close to.

 

[Sad He-Man]

I have been trying to finish Kentucky Route Zero. For now without success.

The game has good dialogues and has excellent experimental presentation. It is too long for its own good. Too unfocused in its supernatural presentation. The gameplay is virtually nonexistent. For some reason it is less than the sum of its parts.

Episodes 1-3:
Episode 4:
Episode 5:

I have earlier written that Disco Elysium does to rpgs what Dear Esther does to FPSes. I feel guilty now. I still stand by my statement, but the extent of Disco's gameplay subordination to story and atmosphere is much less pronounced than in Dear Esther's or KRZ's case.

I guess I am just not feeling the americana.

 

[baud]

I wanted some simple action, so I'm playing Marlow Briggs and the Mask of Death. I like it, it doesn't try to be more than just a fun brawler (or a GoW clone, at some moments the resemblance is uncanny), but it works rather well.
It's fluid, being able to send back projectiles to their sender is fun. It doesn't bore too much with the story and I also like how some of the cutscenes are done

Spoiler

(should be timestamped, otherwise at 9:10)

Though if only it could run for longer than 40 min without having a CTD

 

[Citizen]

My controller died while I was beating Metal Gear Rising Revengeance last boss (No, I didn't smash it against the wall, it stopped working due to unrelated reasons) Mega inclined game BTW, best hack&slash action popamole I played since DMC3

Now I'm stuck without a controller for a few days tho, so I can't finish Okami and MGR

 

[octavius]

Nearing the end of the Eternal Love user-made campaign for HoMM 3.
In the penultimate map I have three course of actions, but what shall I do?

My main hero has the Golden Bow and is an Archer Specialist.

I can try boldly going forth and whip Ash's ass, but that's an awfully big army he's got and if he's immune to Berserk or Blind things could get ugly:

Locate The Grail, but the obelisks are heavily defended and I already have grails in four conquered cities. Besides it's rumoured to be located in Ash's territory anyway. OTOH I got a message telling me not to dawdle with the obelisks, so I suspect the Azure Dragons may drop quest artifacts when defeated, which Seers will trade for +10 in one stat.

Go for the even better defended Dragon Lairs and Dragon Utopia. This will probably be most useful in the long run if I can build a dragon army, and the Utopia may gain me some useful artefact, but 1000 big dragons and 4000 of the normal sized ones will be tough.
I'm leaning towards hitting the 1000 Fairy Dragons first, since they are not immune to spells.

 

[baud]

Now I'm stuck without a controller for a few days tho, so I can't finish Okami and MGR

If you're playing on PC, Okami is playable M+KB, it's not as good as with a controller, but at least it's easier to paint the shapes. I did a good chunk of my playthrough this way.

 

[Squid]

Playing a lot of Morrowind recently. Might even play Daggerfall one day.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

Doing a renegade Mass Effect run. A full renegade run with 3 is brutal and leaves a lot of empty rooms on the Normandy. Just watched Samara blow her brains out after shooting her last daughter, Tali is becoming an alcoholic in the lounge, Liara's whole planet just got scorched, and Ashley made me pull the trigger over Udina. Jack's still there with her biotics, and I saved Jacob and his koala girlfriend from Cerberus. By the end it might just be me and Garrus taking on the Reapers.

We all hate the ending, but going full Machiavelli Shepard has its own treats. If only they never did Andromeda and just let the gruesome grim-dark 3 be the final nail in the coffin, it might have given EA/Bioware some long-term cred. As it is, it just seems half-baked fan service and a desperate attempt at tying up loose ends.

 

[Jvegi]

I'm still paying ToEE, I'm at what I believe is level 4 of the main dungeon, and after quite a nice journey I'm starting to think this is not a good game. It makes me appreciate aspects of KotC more. It makes me appreciate IWD more. It definitely makes me appreciate Durlag's Tower more, and the worst thing is, it makes me appreciate BG2 with difficulty mods.

There are a few things this game does better than others, and they are not utilized enough at all. It's unsettling, and I don't think enough criticism has been thrown at this kind of gameplay.

I only hope KotC 2 will provide us with the experience I want.

I like it, I hate it. This is the kind of game that makes me think games are not good compared to what real life has to offer.

 

[Apostle Hand]

playing Outlast

scary game like you're in some kind of horror movie
also difficult you can't use weapons

 

[JDR13]

playing Outlast

scary game like you're in some kind of horror movie
also difficult you can't use weapons

Outlast is one of my favorite horror games in recent years. The expansion is good too.

 

[Ovplain]

Going through my goddamn backlog. It's colossal. It's disgusting! Would probably be best to just write a bunch of this shit off, but I can't. I have to at least make an effort.

Spoiler

First bunch:
DOOM (Had lass than half way to go, had fun!)
Wolfenstein: The New Order (Just the final boss left. No idea why I stopped the last time.)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Think the save I used was midway through the game, still took me nearly 3 weeks to finish together with both expansions.)
Batman: Arkham Knight (Started from scratch, took almost two weeks, had a blast, nice send-off.)
Beyond: Two Souls (Old save, about a third through I'd say, wrapped the game up in 3 days. Well, 'game.' Did end up caring about what happened to the girl though, so that's something.)
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (Started from scratch, took a week. Solid 'GTA-clone.')
Virginia (From scratch, took like an hour, hour and a half though! Hardly a game, but much like with Beyond, I was invested, I cared. Nice music, nice style.)
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition (Just an easy one to chalk off the list, took a couple hours. Whatever, it's a fighting game. The story was insufferable!)

Second bunch:
What Remains Of Edith Finch (A walking simulator, but it was pretty. I liked it, I cared!)
Rise of the Tomb Raider (Had an old save, had like the last hour or two to go.)
Limbo (Cool, spooky platformer)
Mirror's Edge (Had it since forever, took a couple hours to beat, looks good for a 10 year old game!)
Steep (Used to snowboard as a kid in the late 90s and that was the last time I played a snowboarding game too before this one. Was fun for about a week!)
Mass Effect 2 (Man, this one. Sex & violence in space. Goofy to the 10th power! Laughed my ass off several times and I liked it, goddammit!)
Mass Effect 3 (Less entertaining than the previous one, wasn't QUITE as 'out there.' The last third of it really seemed to take forever.)
Scribblenauts Unmasked (Fun puzzle game, though I'm sure it would've been a whole lot more fun if I was a DC fanboy.)
Transformers: Devastation (I'm 2 hours into it now and I like it. Feels nice! Liked the cartoon a bunch as a kid and this definitely feels like the cartoon.)

Third bunch:
Middle-earth: Shadow of War - Definitive Edition (The first game I bought since I really started going after my backlog. Also the game that probably made me swear off buying any kind of DLC for good. Could've taken just the base game for 12,5 bucks, HAD to get the complete one for 25. Quickly came to the realization that I just didn't care enough about the extra crap. And that the days of trying to 100% games are just done! Ended up ignoring pretty much all of the DLC stuff. And after like 15 hours into the game I just tried to get it over with as soon as possible. No chance in Hell I was going to do the 'epilogue' either. Still had fun though!)
Fallout 4 (There's never been a video game that I've hated more than Fallout 3. Seems times have changed because I didn't have much of an issue with Fallout 4. It's not the Fallout I remember, but that's fine, I'm fine with Fallout being dead. Had a lot of fun exploring the wasteland for the 50 hours or so it took me to finish. And playing a chick, a mother, the main questline threw me for a solid spin in the second half of the game.)
Assassin's Creed Syndicate (Had a huge urge to get Oddyssey on sale. For whatever reason. 'Forced' myself to fire up Syndicate instead. Gotta keep chipping away at that backlog! Anyway, I had fun! Started to get a bit boring after 15 hours or so, this is Assassin's Creed afterall, but I just bulldozed my way through the last couple of chapters and wrapped the whole thing up in about 20 hours.)
Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Shadows of Hong Kong (Really like the Shadowrun games, but this thing was just a slog. Didn't even bother with the side-missions, just wanted to wrap it up ASAP and did.)

Fourth bunch:
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (I really liked the first one, put 600+ hours into it even! Across 2-3 completed playthroughs and several aborted ones. Won't be doing that with PoE2 but I did have a lot of fun with it for the 60-70 hours it took me to get through it.)
Assassin's Creed Odyssey (Second game I bought since I started attacking my backlog. And I couldn't get enough of this one! Clocked in around 85 hours as the broad Kassandra, ultimately forced myself to just stick to the main missions towards the end and wrap it up 'early.' Probably could've gone 100+ hours otherwise. GOTY 2018! Then again I only played two other games released in 2018, PoE2 and Battletech. Unexpected! Had an inkling I was going to like this one, didn't think it'd be that much. Curse you, Ubisoft!)
Age of Mythology: Extended Edition (I recall really loving this one back in the day. It definitely doesn't have the same impact nowadays! Shit didn't age too well. Shudder to think how I'd feel playing AoE 1 now, or even crap like WarCraft 1/2 or C&C! Loved those games as a kid, really glad I don't own any of them now, glad I don't have to play them now. Still, AoM was OK, got through the main campaign fine, there was no chance in hell I was going to do the expansion stuff.)
The Room Two (A pretty simple puzzle game, something different for me, was OK for the two hours it took me to beat it.)
The Cave (Kinda funny puzzle platformer from Ron Gilbert. Pretty easy, a bit clunky, but I didn't mind dragging three people through it.)

Fifth bunch:
Mark of the Ninja (Great 2D stealth platformer! Could barely stop playing once I started.)
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (Played it once before on the PS3 so the emotional impact was way weaker this time around, still had a nice time, game still looks lovely, plays great.)
The Banner Saga 2 (Played the first one a while back, no idea why it took me this long to get around to playing the second one. Liked the story, loved the art, got a bit tired of the combat.)
The Banner Saga 3 (Finished the second one, had to finish the third one as well. Same as with part 2. Maybe this one was a bit short, at least I didn't like how this whole epic saga was just wrapped up with a, 'Hey, that sure was something, huh? Alright, bye!')
Thimbleweed Park (Thought I was going to like it way more than I did. It was fine! Just didn't like how the main characters would barely acknowledge eachother. You'd have them cooperate with eachother to solve puzzles but it never really made much sense why they'd want to.)
Dishonored 2 (Loved the first one, I really did. Gave this one a go, but for some reason wasn't really feelin' it so I bailed after a couple of hours. I'll be back though!)
Far Cry 5 (Felt like playing this instead. Picked it up for 12€, my first gaming purchase of the year. And so far, so good. Like the world, I'm having fun, don't like the way the 'story' keeps hassling me. Just weirdly done. I'm out there, I don't know, doing something silly, something fun, and the game will just decide,'OK, buddy, that's enough of that! Time for one of the boring villians to talk at you for 5 minutes.')

Sixth bunch:
Far Cry 4 (Just had to wrap it up, finished it in a couple hours. Was probably fun enough the first time I played it.)
Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition (Finished the original campaign way back when, never got around to going through the EE. Until now. Great game, enjoyable game, but can't imagine I'll ever go back again.)
Assassin's Creed Origins (Didn't expect to enjoy this one much. But I did! Not as much as Odyssey, but still. Played it for a solid week, finished it even. Ptolemaic Egypt looked great.)
Cities: Skylines (Liked it, but ultimately just got a city to 75000 people and quit, considered the game 'finished' at that point. F'ing traffic!)
Mass Effect: Andromeda (Liked it a lot more than I thought I would. Felt kinda bad even that there does not seem to be a new one on the horizon. Would love to visit Andromeda some more. Will happen eventually, I'm sure!)
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (Finished an old save from about 2/3 through the game. Always nice to go back to Baldur's Gate.)
Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear (Playing this right now and hey! I'm enjoying myself well enough. Not digging through deeply into it, but as it is, it's just more 'Baldur's Gate' to me. Looks good too!)

Seventh Bunch:
Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition (Been forever since I last played it, at least a decade. Felt great going back.)
Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition (Same thing as with Planescape really. You really can go home again!)
Assassin's Creed Odyssey - New Game Plus + DLC (This goddamn thing. Played more than 200 hours now all together and I just couldn't get enough of it! I hope it's really over now. )
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Liked the previous two nü-tomb raiders. More of the same here, fun, exciting, liked the tombs. Looked great on my ultra-wide too!)
Prey (Shouldn't have put this off for this long. Had a blast. Intentionally left a fistful of side stuff unifinished so I can eventually go back for NG+.)
Abzû (Looked pretty on ultrawide! Music was nice. Did get a little tired of it about an hour in but it did draw me back in towards the end.)

Latest Bunch:
Dishonored 2 (Really liked the first Dishonored game. Bought this as soon as it came out, gave it a go, just didn't grab me. Did this time around though, loved it!)
Borderlands GOTY Enhanced (Was in the mood for some shooting I guess. Blasted through it in 3 days.)
Borderlands 2 (This one took like 2 weeks, guess I was kinda spent.)
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Liked it a lot, go through it in a weekend. If it had some kind of 'new game plus,' I would've gone right back in.)
The Outer Worlds (First game to ever make me feel physically ill! Other than Bad Mojo way back when. Dunno, something didn't quite gel right with my ultrawide display. Managed to get it sorted and finish the game, fun game! Though I seem to have no desire to ever wanna go back.)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (Loved the original, couldn't wait for this one. Bought it day one, refunded it 1 hour later. Shit ultra-wide support. Poo. Bought again though later on, found an ultrawide mod and had a blast playing it.)
Dragon Age: Inquisition (Think I had fun here and there, but even though I blasted through it as quickly as I possibly could, still felt like the game was dragging on and on.)
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (Was great, liked it a lot. Beat in 2 days.)
The Sinking City (Really enjoyed it, despite it being pretty janky.)
Control (Knew pretty much nothing about the game, don't think I even heard about it before it popped up on the Epic Games Store. Liked Alan Wake, bought this on a whim, had a ton of fun.)
Shardlight (Was in the mood for a point 'n' click adventure, this one was decent enough, nothing too difficult, beat it at a pretty comfortable pace.)
God of War: Ascension (Still have a couple unbeaten games left on my PS3, wanted to get one out of the way, picked this one. Was OK.)
Far Cry 5 New Game Plus (Figured it'd look nice @ 21:9. It did.)
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones (Backed it on Kickstarter, think it was worth it.)
Divinity: Original Sin 2 (Finally got through it, tried several times before, always grew bored. I don't know, these D:OS games. They're good, they're very good, but just not quite my bag or something. Don't dig the whole 'theme park design' thing.)
Disco Elysium (Game got ultrawide support, was thrilled, couldn't buy it fast enough once I found out. GOTY.)
Saints Row: The Third (Blasted through it in two days.)
Saints Row IV (Blasted through it in three days.)
Batman: Arkham Origins (Wanted to be Batman again. Good game.)
Carmageddon: Max Damage (Scratched an itch I forgot I had. Loved the original two games as a kid and thought this new one was pretty good! Felt like 'good ol' Carmageddon' to me and that was plenty.)
Dying Light (Played it a while back, couldn't get through it, but I did this time. Excited about the sequel!)
Dead Island Definitive Edition (Felt like killing some more zombies. Bit wonky, still hacking up zombies just refused to get old. Hated the city though, Moresby.)
Wasteland 2: Director's Cut (Beat the original release a while back, finally finished the DC. Bring on Wasteland 3!)

 

[octavius]

Completed the Eternal Love user-made campaign for HoMM 3.

Pretty good, and quite educational. I learnt some new tricks during the eight maps, thanks partly due to high difficulty, and partly due to maps to a degree being designed to facilitate uncommon tactics.

For example the first map you fill up your hero's spell book by using the Eagle Eye skill. This hero also is expert Scholar and will teach heroes in the next map.

There's also instances where Hypnotize actually becomes the opposite of the most useless spell.
I also learnt that Magic Elementals for some reason can't hurt Efreet Sultans at all.

And against legions of dragons, 3000 Azure Dragons being the biggest battle, one really learns to appreciate the Force Field spell and Ammo Carts.

The storyline is also quite involved, but sadly the writing is pretty bad. If you can't write well, please make it brief. Verbosity and bad fan fiction level of writing is not a good combo. The Heroes Chronicles really set a bad example in that regard.

The individual maps are not as pretty as the best single player maps, and there is a tendency towards symmetry and repeating of themes (especially using Water walk to reach stuff) that gives most of the maps a certain multi-player feel. But overall they are pretty good, especially the two last ones but one, which are Extra Large maps with some epic battles.

I got a bug while playing the penultimate map, which caused the Tactics skill of my main hero to not work anymore, making some battle even harder.

The main hero starts with Wisdom, Intelligence and Archery, and it is suggested in-game you choose all four magic skills, leaving only one slot, and the obvious choice is of course Logistics, which leaves out Tactics.
Personally I think Tactics is too useful, especially when your primary hero is an Archery specialist, your tertiary is Gelu, and you need to protect those glass cannon Sharpshooters. And there are lots of battles against huge stacks of Dragons where you really need to position your units before casting Force Field. And you cast only one spell each round anyway, so I went with Earth as the most obvious one (Resurrect is crucial to avoid too much attrition), Fire Magic for Expert Berserker, and Air Magic for Haste and Precision, leaving out Water Magic. Expert Forgetfulness would have been useful a few times, and Mass Bless, Prayer and Cure (but several Blinded stacks can be cured with a painful Death Ripple spell), and Expert Clone, is of course nice, but not crucial.
So I think I made the right choice.

Anyway, highly recommended campaign, if you want something more challenging than the lame Chronicles.

Some highlights:

Spoiler

When Hypnotize is the winning spell. Actually can also be useful when facing Blind immune heroes.
When I used auto-combat the computer actually cast the most useless spell (in this situation): Counterstrike! :D

When being slim devil gives you a tactical advantage.

 

[DDZ]

What the shit octavius.

I think I have completed 15 games max in all my life, and I play a lot of games.

 

[Krivol]

Civ VI is... weird. I haven't played 5 at all, and this Epic giveaway is my first time with new type of Civ and...I don't like it. Graphics look like cheap mobile game, there are more and more mana points, just like in new Paradox game, insignificant bonuses etc.

Maybe I could live with that and get used to...

But... there are no roads? Really? Why? Who's idea was this? Are roads part of some DLC?

Nope, thank you, life is too short for this. Civ 4 with mods is still best Civ experience IMO. With Alpha Centauri on 2nd place and Civ2 on third.

 

[Darth Roxor]

But... there are no roads? Really? Why? Who's idea was this? Are roads part of some DLC?

You lay down roads by sending traders between cities. Later on you can also get military engineers that have a number of charges for road building like workers.

Yep, it's pants-on-head stupid. But it's still got nothing on the downright idiotic feature that are the districts, or the generally unimpressive feel of... everything, from research to basic buildings in cities. Civ6 is honestly pretty damn terrible.

 

[octavius]

What the shit octavius.

I think I have completed 15 games max in all my life, and I play a lot of games.

I wonder if there is a correlation?

For me not seeing the climax of game in which I've invested time and energy is a bit like coitus interruptus. Not very satisfactory.

 

[DDZ]

What the shit octavius.

I think I have completed 15 games max in all my life, and I play a lot of games.

I wonder if there is a correlation?

For me not seeing the climax of game in which I've invested time and energy is a bit like coitus interruptus. Not very satisfactory.

I've got ADHD, I can't stick to a game, except it's a game with more or less no finish, hack n slash, Kerbal Space Program, Rimworld and even things like Euro Truck Simulator.

I wonder, are you also susceptible to movie spoilers? Because that's another thing I don't seem to be able to care about, spoiled or not, I enjoy movies the same.

 

[octavius]

I wonder, are you also susceptible to movie spoilers? Because that's another thing I don't seem to be able to care about, spoiled or not, I enjoy movies the same.

Good question.
I prefer to avoid spoilers if I can, but of course some movies are too famous to avoid that even if I haven't seen them.
But I make chronological yearly lists of movies to watch and books to read, and that way I can start some movies or books (avoiding Forewords like the plague) and have no idea what to expect. But it's more serious with books for me; movies are usually just something I watch while eating, so I take them less seriously.

 

[Reality]

Playing Synaptic Drive - a Spiritual Sequel to Custom Robo by one of the original developers (released yesterday)

Unfortunately game is not good.

I really do like Ground Dashes and Wires (replacement for Bombs)

But everything else about the game I hate - Trackers ( replacement for Pods) have Way too much homing, making close range possible to shut down without even trying.
The Main Guns also have terrible problems - A meta about long range vs Long range would be FINE, but unfortunately the stand in one place super homing gun (Big Ball) absolutely clobbers everything else. It doesn't help that it's one of the guns that is conveniently immune to the knockdown mechanic. A lot of other guns have oppresive homing, but this one stands out since it also basically ignores walls and can fill up most of a stage.

The game also has Ultimates, which are terrible mechanic (and 3 are far better than the other 9). Custom Robo already has pretty spooky burst damage WITHOUT a dumb mechanic like this, and the camping playstyle encouraged by the obnoxious amount of homing even doubles down on them (giving time to charge pretty freely)

Beyond the oppresive gameplay- the netcode is bad and because of far higher sales in Japan, you usually get lag-fest that will just end in teleporting to death in between being homing spammed to death. (Most US-US matches are also considered by the game to be an unstable connection as reported by myself, basically everyone in 2 discords and the steam reviews)

I was hoping it would grow on me once I found out how to out-maneuver the Big Ball …. but it's not like they can't just outrade you with their secondaries and the time it takes to make the big swerves around the entire level gives the corner camping Big Ball user time to let their ultimate charge.

It did 2 cool things I would like if Custom Robo got another kind of spiritual sequel or reboot, but as a package, no one should have to suffer through this game.

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

Replaying Shadow Tactics on Hardcore in anticipation of Desperados 3.
And boy is the game good. Just the right amount of difficulty and openness. I'm taking completely different appraoches than on my first playthrough, but the amount and placement of enemies is so tight that you really have to think your way through the maps, it's all kinds of awesome! All characters are likeable and fill their niche, with only Yuki being a bit overpowered, but that may also be me. Nice graphics (achieved with Unity!), cool story, a nice ambient soundtrack, superb options menu and perfect console port (yeah, I'm playing this on Xbox) round it off.
No way the new Desperados will reach or surpass this. I hope it'll be half as good.

 

[Monolith]

Playing GTA V for the first time - Thanks Epic. I've skipped GTA IV and the jump from San Andreas to V is impressive. So far it was worth to fight through that crappy launcher and Rockstar Social club bullshit. Amazing to see some mountains in the background, grab a car and be there by sunset, looking over the city. Or driving around aimlessly, going out to a highway, going on and on just to shoot some doggies at a beach.

Not much into the actual "game" game yet, let's see how this goes.

What irritated me right away though was the unrealistic car damage. Going through some mods now. Same with the ragdoll and injury effect. Will try it with those two:
https://www.gta5-mods.com/vehicles/real-vehicle-damage
https://www.gta5-mods.com/misc/euphoria-ragdoll-overhaul-ero

 

[Chippy]

I was gonna get Total War: Warhammer 1 in the Steam sale @ 75% off. But then I saw all the DLC shit and it still comes in at about £40 or so. So I just decided to install DOW Gold again. Also, this mod: https://www.moddb.com/mods/titanium-wars-mod is pretty awesome and has just been updated.

Heroes with exp and expanded equiptment. Titans. Much more units.

Titans.

 

[cosmicray]

Half-Life: Blue Shift - Wow, it ended so anticlimactic. It's also short. And that scientist dialogues was tiresome, yet Valve borrowed the idea for HL2. Of course, some fatigue from HL and OP maybe taking hold, but Blue Shift is still weakest of those.
Nier: Automata - still on route C, but it constantly amazes me. There's so much more in terms of the story going on.
Football Manager 2020 Demo - Finished half the season. Gonna wait for a discount to continue my save.
World Of Warcraft - playing mostly 1 hour per day or less. Not gonna make it to 120 with that attitude.

 

[Apostle Hand]

playing Divine Divinity

what a great game