What are you playing?

[koemo1]

Currently playing Ace Combat 7: Unknown Skies

[kypherion]

Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne HD Remaster, just finished my first and second playthroughs acquiring powerful demons. Now I'm gonna shoot for obtaining/mastering them all on that save file and see the other endings.

[Cartagia]

Started Far Cry 2 (the only game in the series I had played previous was Blood Dragon), and it is really being held back by a few things - mostly the constantly respawning enemy encampments.  They make it a chore to do any quest.  I admire the general devotion to realism, but it is making it more tedious than fun.  As far as I am aware, most of my issues are sorted in part 3, so I'll get there eventually.

I also dipped my toes back into PC Building Simulator which is a incredibly addictive and a fun time sink, but I'm already having to drag myself away from it because I'm getting too absorbed.

[wartoy]

Im getting back to my retro roots i started playing shining force sword of hajya for game gear and im enjoying it alot.

[tripredacus]

I'm now trying Aliens vs Predator (2010) and it is just Ugggh :\

[telekill]

I'm going to be running through Shenmue 1 and 2 again to get an idea of what scene I want to have in my Shenmue shadowbox I'm going to make.

[kamikazekeeg]

Decided I would give New World a shot with the closed beta happening.  I haven't been able to get into MMO's in quite a long time, not since the early days of WoW, or Star Wars Galaxies, and some Final Fantasy XI, I think it's kinda just the structure, too much hot key RPG stuff which isn't as fun to me anymore.  I had only been hearing little bits on the game for abit, but the idea of this fantasy 16th century, mixing that sorta setting with magic and such is a unique setup.  The game also came across feeling a lot more like a survival game in kinda the way you gather and craft items you need, like none of this is new, it's still got a lot of the MMO structure, but how its packaged feels good.

I did buy it, so I will play through the closed beta and then launch, but it's also great that it's a one time buy game, like Guild Wars was, no subscription, so I don't feel like I HAVE to play, like with other subscription games.  Maybe this one will hook me in long enough.  I do sorta need to find myself a guild soon, which I also haven't been a part of one in many years, as that'll do a lot to keep me with the game.

[mrkonasoni]

I am playing Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2 for Xbox 360, Starkiller is actually my favorite StarWars character.

Anyway game feels obvious inspired by hack n slash at the time but adding some personal stuff like the force, game is really good so far.

[kamikazekeeg]

Ended up not sticking with New World, deciding against playing at launch, not because it's a bad game, but I think I'm realizing that what is keeping me from MMO's, more so than just kinda that tedious early level grind, is simply that I need a good group to play with or a community to get involved with.  Like the reason I've played so much Rust in the past like 10 months, is because I found a fantastic PVE server with some fun people and good admin.  I don't interact crazy amounts, but I generally do and it can be quite fun.  New World is a good game I think gameplay wise, but I ended up not loving the world a ton, it's okay, but I wasn't seeing the wow factor quite early enough.

I do want to try and give Final Fantasy XIV another shot, but I'm gonna have to find a community to get involved with first before attempting it again, see if I can't get out of the early game this time.

[tripredacus]

I had taken a break somewhat of doing the 52 games challenge, as it happens you kind of get burned out on trying new things when you have multiple games in a row that you end up not liking... So I had spent the majority of this month trying to complete a particular achievement in Civ V. I'm not sure how long but it may have been over 30 hours worth.

This achievement is Barbary Pirate: "As Suleiman, accumulate a navy with 10 Barbarian naval units."
When I play Civ V I tend to play with unoptimal settings and goals, because it is my belief that in a properly balanced game it should be possible to win using any strategy if you are able to get it right. Not using the term "balance" to say that there aren't exploits or OP things present, but that a game is open enough to allow any (or many) different ways to beat it.

Now the particular strategy was using Suleiman (obv) on King difficulty, with Eco priority, playing Wide on the add-on Asia map, with all victory conditions enabled except Time. The Asia map only provides start access to ocean tiles about 50% of the time. I had already run through full games on Standard speed and lost to Diplomatic, Cultural and then Science victories by CPU players. So then I decided to attempt a Dom only option. Now in my current game in which I have a decent chance at being able to complete, I am left wondering why my barb naval units aren't counting, why I am not getting the achievement. I have about 15 of those ships I captured but the nothing is happening.

Then I find out yesterday that it is impossible to get this achievement with the DLC enabled! 

So I can start again without the DLC (I'm not sure I've even played this without G&K) and hopefully it will be an easier time.

[kamikazekeeg]

With the release of the Castlevania Advanced Collection, I thought that rather than go right into that, I'd check out Rondo and Symphony since I find it a little harder to go backwards in a series and I am sorta figuring on the GBA games to be based off like Symphony, so I should start with the original.  Part of me hoped we'd see those put into one of the new collections, but I guess the only versions available are the PSP ones, so those are stuck on Playstation. 

Picked it up and while Rondo seems nice, the lack of the directional attacks available in Super Castlevania IV sucks so bad, I don't get why they did this, because I think it's such a downgrade in the gameplay.  Also one thing I definitely miss with this compared to the Anniversary Collection is save states.  You only get 3 lives and then have to restart back at the beginning of the level.  It's weird how little patience I have for this kind of stuff in old games, like I'll dump the time in a Souls game constantly running back to places after deaths, but you make me restart a level after getting close to the end and I'll just throw my hands up in frustration lol  Gonna try and stick with it, though I poked my head into Symphony for a few minutes and while the lack of direction attacks are still here, the mobility is so nice.

*EDIT*
I have managed to get through most of the game, last level I think, I will say, the general difficulty of the game is probably lighter than the previous Castlevania games I played overall, so I can't get too mad at restarting levels on game over, but I'd still love a save state.  Really mostly just wanting to get Symphony of the Night as I've been wanting to play that one for a long time.

[burningdoom]

^ Symphony of the Night is a masterpiece of 2D gaming! I hope you enjoy it.

[kamikazekeeg]

^ Symphony of the Night is a masterpiece of 2D gaming! I hope you enjoy it.

I played just a short bit of it after getting annoyed in Rondo and I went for like 20 minutes and was like "I gotta stop now, or I won't ever get back to Rondo" lol

[Cartagia]

I've been really digging into Darkest Dungeon, which is super, super fun.  I kind of wish I had it on a tablet or something, though, because its a super easy pick up and play- which isn't something you can really do on PC.  It's exactly the kind of turned based strategy game I really love, and the aesthetic is incredible.  Unlike XCOM, though, a bad run won't ruin the entire playthrough.  You can pretty easily build back up your strength.  The downside is that in order to get to the end of the game it gets a little grindy around the middle bits as you have to level up your characters to do the harder dungeons.

[kamikazekeeg]

Got the date wrong as I thought the Death Stranding: Director's Cut was supposed to release next week, but was actually last Friday, so I've begun my proper 2nd playthrough of the game.  This was originally nearly my GOTY in 2019 and it would have been that, had Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and Resident Evil 2: Remake not released in the same year.  I got super absorbed into this very strange, but unique game, putting in something like 90 hours into the game, completing most stuff in the game at the time.  I did double dip when it came to PC, bought it on a sale, but I for whatever reason didn't dive into a proper 2nd run.  But with all the new features and content and the upgrade cost only 10 bucks if you own the original game (Bought it used for like 10 bucks I think at Gamestop), it was worth diving back in and I'm already getting sucked back into this odd delivery game. 

Gonna be abit till I get to the new story content because I'm doing a fresh start of the game, but it's been nice, especially once you get over kinda that early game hump as the game opens up a lot in the second area which is a few hours in.  The first zone being kinda like a training zone essentially to get you use to all the mechanics before expanding outwards with features.