What are you playing?

[megasilverx1]

Started Yakuza 0 and Mega Man Star Force 3: Red Joker. Never played a game from either of these series and have been enjoying both so far (finished chapter 1 in Yakuza 0 and a little over an hour into Star Force 3). Inspired by Jeff Gerstmann ranking NES games, I've been replaying all the Classic series Mega Man games I own in order of release and ranking them afterwards. Twenty-one games in and I'm feeling a bit burnt out, so Yakuza and Star Force are working as my break games.

[kamikazekeeg]

I remembered why I dumped 150 hours into Metal Gear Solid V back when it first came out, because it's just an addictive gameplay loop for me lol Figured with the recent talk of Kojima going back to the genre with an original game, and that I'm super in the mood for something Kojima related with Death Stranding 2 coming out next year, I thought I'd dive back into MGSV and I do just really like the game still.  It's not perfect, I think some of the UI stuff is clunky for a mouse/keyboard, but I just love the whole experience and it'll be interesting replaying it having some knowledge of what is happening beforehand, though I'm super forgetting a lot of it, which is also good.

One thing I did notice here, that I'm not sure if I noticed from back then or not, but it was definitely not the best idea to get Keifer Sutherland for the role of Snake.  Not that it was a bad idea, his voice is great for the character, but when you hire a big name celebrity, there's a much higher cost and a limited amount of time you can have him around compared to your standard voice actor, and what happens is that Snake doesn't talk a ton outside of the story.  In past games, you'd get a lot of dialogue with Snake outside of the story, but here, it seems like if its not story, he's not talking or interacting as much.  Makes him feel so passive in the story.  It was sorta the same thing with Norman Reedus in Death Stranding, but him not being talkative actually works in favor with his character and some of the world aspects, so it's a little more forgivable.  They supplement it with way more Miller and Ocelot dialogue, but more Snake would've been good.

Still looking forward to going through the game for a second time though.  I should be playing some newer stuff I have in my backlog, but I think I'm just gonna play through this until Final Fantasy 7 later this month lol

[hellobion]

Currently playing Halo 3 for the 21st time and trying to beat it on legendary alone!

[alligo]

GB Relink, the chapters follow one another quite quickly.
I really liked the passage with the attacks of the ships.

The bosses (and the final boss) of chapter 5 are very cool, especially the last one with the music that accompanies it.

I like the game for the moment.

Edit : I finished the game and had fun from start to finish.
The staging, the OST and the bosses are exceptional.
They really put all the resources into the visuals and the staging, it's a big hit.

The game and the bosses are really fun to play, I loved the final boss. This is for me the biggest surprise of the year, I haven't had this much fun in a few months ! 

[kamikazekeeg]

Tried to play Helldivers 2, but my PC was not liking it lol Got it to run okay, better than I was expecting, but kept getting crashes, which could've been a game thing or a PC thing, or both really, I know it has some issues, them having just fixed server problems, because their game was too successful, but oh well, refunded that.  I am looking to get a new PC, hopefully next month, so I might attempt it again down the road as it's a very satisfying game to play in the two missions I got to play.  Very chunky and bombastic action and all the Starship Troopers styled theming is pretty fun.

[alligo]

I have just finished Metro 2033, the game has some scary passages.

Good concept compared to tunnels / metros, graphically is not bad for a old game.
But there are quite a few flaws.

The AI is "cheat" because if we are seen, it can shoot us even through walls/boxes and see us from everywhere, so even behind a car.
At one point I was hiding behind a car and I don't know how they could see me.
They can even see me in the dark, but not me (with the lamp off, of course)
monsters sometimes come out of nowhere (for some)

Some bug, the passage with the orbs (Giant Amoeba) was annoying because the NPC stopped for no reason.
The player sometimes got stuck between stairs.
During the passage with the crane, I died just after having finished lifting one of the batteries 

7/10

[kamikazekeeg]

I wasn't planning to play Sons of the Forest this week, but I saw it hit 1.0 out of the blue (to me at least), so figured I got nothing to play (if I ignore the backlog for the moment) till FF7 next week.  I "beat" it once already back when it was super unfinished, a year ago, missing a ton of its content as I thought the game was supposed to be further along than it was, but it's so far been pretty good.  I think my only real negative so far is that the games survival aspect is really light still, I don't need it to be Green Hell levels of survival, but it's pretty basic and because the games item respawn is very loose, I think on the ground items that aren't in boxes respawn upon game restart and possibly even sleeping, not 100% sure on that, but its really easy to get all the supplies you need pretty easily.

Oh well, will see how the story goes at least, that was almost non-existent back when I last played.

[telekill]

Finally got a few rounds of Helldivers 2 (PS5) in. Took about 20 min to connect to their servers though. Kind of crazy. The game is pretty fun when you get used to it and only if you have buds to play with. This probably wouldn't be near as fun if played solo. Seems the dev is addressing connection issues so that should get better.

[alligo]

Finished Metro Last Light and I find it a little superior to Metro 2033 for certain improvements, even if it's more or less similar to this one. (Level design or others)
Still very beautiful graphically, the atmosphere, the immersion and the artistic direction are also incredible.

I loved the passage through the marsh before arriving at the church, the River of Fate and the red square.
At least in LL, enemies don't spot us with the light off. The AI isn't great, but it does the job. They added some bosses.

[Cartagia]

I finished Act 2 of Baldur's Gate 3 last night after about 85 hours.  This game deserves all of the accolades that have been heaped on it.  I'm aiming for a kind of Neutral Good / pragmatic scoundrel playthrough, and it's working out pretty well so far.  I love it, but hate that it is eating up so much of my time.  There's still so many other games I need to get to.

[kamikazekeeg]

Finally was able to devote a bunch of time to FF7: Rebirth and I'm loving it, I'm enjoying the experience a lot more than I did FF16 last year, which is interesting to compare, as they have very similar aspects, FF7 was just the better realization of it in terms of what you do in the world, the general structure of things. It's so much more enjoyable compared to how boring it could be in FF16, which is a shame as I loved the story of that game.  I'm going to spend so much time trying to do everything I can in every area before progressing lol

[dhaabi]

I finished Act 2 of Baldur's Gate 3 last night after about 85 hours.  This game deserves all of the accolades that have been heaped on it.  I'm aiming for a kind of Neutral Good / pragmatic scoundrel playthrough, and it's working out pretty well so far.  I love it, but hate that it is eating up so much of my time.  There's still so many other games I need to get to.

I've found myself caught in the middle of watching a let's play for Baldur's Gate 3 and am having a good time experiencing the game that way, although I've only gotten through Act 1. I don't game on PC and have been waiting for the console physical release, so I'm sure I'll play it myself one of these days, hopefully sooner than later. In late 2022, I started playing Dungeons and Dragons for the first time albeit without much regularity, so both games are helping me understand another.

Setting out to play these long games is something I've found myself mostly avoiding for the same reason you're saying, that it limits the amount of total games I'm able to play. I've sidelined many RPGs that are part of my collection because of it, unfortunately.

[Cartagia]

I finished Act 2 of Baldur's Gate 3 last night after about 85 hours.  This game deserves all of the accolades that have been heaped on it.  I'm aiming for a kind of Neutral Good / pragmatic scoundrel playthrough, and it's working out pretty well so far.  I love it, but hate that it is eating up so much of my time.  There's still so many other games I need to get to.

I've found myself caught in the middle of watching a let's play for Baldur's Gate 3 and am having a good time experiencing the game that way, although I've only gotten through Act 1. I don't game on PC and have been waiting for the console physical release, so I'm sure I'll play it myself one of these days, hopefully sooner than later. In late 2022, I started playing Dungeons and Dragons for the first time albeit without much regularity, so both games are helping me understand another.

Setting out to play these long games is something I've found myself mostly avoiding for the same reason you're saying, that it limits the amount of total games I'm able to play. I've sidelined many RPGs that are part of my collection because of it, unfortunately.

The one Let's Play I've been watching is actually taking more time to get through than I am, so I'm managing to stay ahead of them, so I get to see a few differing outcomes and my own choices.  It's pretty nice.  I used to play D&D with friends, but that group sort of fell apart, but I also played other similar CRPGs, as well as the old D&D Icewind Dale titles, so it's kinda feeling like coming home in some ways.

[dhaabi]

I finished Act 2 of Baldur's Gate 3 last night after about 85 hours.  This game deserves all of the accolades that have been heaped on it.  I'm aiming for a kind of Neutral Good / pragmatic scoundrel playthrough, and it's working out pretty well so far.  I love it, but hate that it is eating up so much of my time.  There's still so many other games I need to get to.

I've found myself caught in the middle of watching a let's play for Baldur's Gate 3 and am having a good time experiencing the game that way, although I've only gotten through Act 1. I don't game on PC and have been waiting for the console physical release, so I'm sure I'll play it myself one of these days, hopefully sooner than later. In late 2022, I started playing Dungeons and Dragons for the first time albeit without much regularity, so both games are helping me understand another.

The one Let's Play I've been watching is actually taking more time to get through than I am, so I'm managing to stay ahead of them, so I get to see a few differing outcomes and my own choices.  It's pretty nice.  I used to play D&D with friends, but that group sort of fell apart, but I also played other similar CRPGs, as well as the old D&D Icewind Dale titles, so it's kinda feeling like coming home in some ways.

I wish that was the order I was experiencing Baldur's Gate 3 myself, but I think I'll still enjoy it quite a bit once I do have the opportunity to play. It helps a little that who I'm watching play isn't that experienced in the genre, so I feel that any playthrough of mine would be quite different with battle and exploration alone.

I've only just started experiencing western RPG video games in the last two years or so, and it's been enjoyable. To my understanding, though, they've not been as in-depth regarding player choice and outcome, so D&D has been a lot of fun in that regard. But, even from what I've read about D&D, it isn't as complex as other tabletop RPGs, so I suppose I've only scratched the surface for that style of games. I'd love to be able to play D&D more often, but it's the typical case of everyone having conflicting schedules. Fortunately, though, despite everyone living in different parts of the world (two in United States, two in Japan, and originally two in Australia which have left the group), geography isn't an issue.

[alligo]

Guardians of the Galaxy, another good surprise.
The game respects the universe and the spirit of the guardians both in terms of humor and characters.
There are a lot of details and a lot of dialogue not to be missed, the jokes between the group are funny.
But it's a shame to be able to control only one person.

Towards the end of the chapters it drags a little but I liked the little surprise in the "credits".
There is a system of choices which has an impact during the story (but if we fail, I don't know if it changes much)
On the other hand, the response time is too short, I don't even have time to listen to the end of what the characters say.

Quite a few scripted scenes or QTE not necessary...
The gameplay is quite repetitive and basic (nothing crazy) and can sometimes be messy but that's okay
Some bosses can still be annoying because they are HP spongy even when using the right elemental and guardian techniques.

The AI is meh, sometimes it stays still and does nothing.
There are also a lot of bugs and an audio problem, the dialogues sometimes cut out without me doing anything, it will cut out for another scripted dialogue or be super low.

I had bugs that had to make me reload my saves often : drax didn't want to move a rock, script that didn't work, and the ship that appeared in a cutscene during the flashback of a scene while he was is supposed to appear AFTER and not during the cutscene.

In short, the game may not revolutionize the genre but it's funny (it's been a long time since I laughed so hard at a game) and really respects its universe. Too bad it is marred by many bugs because they are quite annoying.