The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion

I’ve been playing the Cyberpunk DLC and just finished that last night. Aside from some annoying bugs that was pretty fun.

I’m nearing the end of my first BG 3 playthrough that I’ve been streaming with a friend. We decided to go Dark Urge and it’s made this kind of a weird first playthrough. It’s been fun but I think in hindsight it would have been better to have a more normal first run then go back for this. Also, found a kind of funny bug (?) in the vampire boss fight. The boss has some property that says he can’t be moved by physical or magical means. But when I threw that legendary spear that has a knock back AoE, it sent him off the cliff and that was the fight aside from mopping up the ads.

Aside from that I’m always playing TFT occasionally. I climbed higher than I ever did before: 200 LP masters before I hit another funk and started backsliding.

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My first playthrough right now is also Dark Urge. I thought it would be especially hard as a good character (Paladin/Bard) but at the beginning of Act 2 I have to say: apart from an early Camp event there was nothing problematic Dark Urge related until now. Mostly murderous thoughts I could ignore without any dice rolls and a few more Camp events that only added some flavour.

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- I figured it just made sense to lean into it once I realized what it was. I didn’t go FULL murder hobo, but I ended up doing enough to trigger a bunch of special quest stuff unique to the Dark Urge. I still think this was probably better as a 2nd play through, but I was pretty satisfied with all the content the game had to fill the gaps caused by me… suddenly cutting off some quest lines.
  
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I finally got around installing OpenMW and started playing.

Feels good to relive my first "serious" RPG experience.

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I had completely forgotten OpenMW existed and now the rest of my year is spoken for.

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Note, there are some forks of OpenMW. One fore android, one adds multiplayer, one makes it VR.

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I need to get that on my phone now that I have a Backbone.

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Currently taking my sweet time playing No Man's Sky. I bought it on release, never played until recently, and couldn't be happier. Avoiding the story, building a massive base, and exploring the cosmos has never been so satisfying. Next up on my list of games to check out again is Cyberpunk. Everyone and their mother says it's better now, so I figure it's worth a shot.

8

I was playing the new DLC recently and I encountered some brand new bugs that I didn’t see on my first playthrough. Sometimes after completing a quest, the game would just lock me out of certain features like the map, journal, inventory, phone, etc. only way to fix it was to reload.

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- First thing that I did in the DLC was to start an original game mission that I hadn’t done on this character but I couldn’t complete it. I think that it was the one with Lizzy where you had to get into a nightclub and talk to someone. I couldn’t get past the bouncer even though I had max street cred and the two side entrances were also not active.
  
  I’ve done the mission in another character with no issues.
  
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No Man's Sky really is a pleasant surprise. It took a few years but it's a stellar game with so much to do.

I wonder if starfield will ever reach that level

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BG3 still.

7

FTL

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Classic

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I finished Spiritfarer, and I gotta say, I was underwhelmed. The game told me I was the new Charon and promised me an emotional experience of helping spirits come to terms with whatever was holding them back before disappearing forever.

What actually happened, is that I found myself in the company of very demanding (and, often enough, even quite rude) spirits who never actually bothered with interacting with me on anything more than a very superficial level, mostly just to ask for arbitrary and very specific things. "Stella, I want Fried Chicken" (which requires ingredients that you can only craft hours later). "Stella, I want expensive furniture for my house". "Stella, go buy a rose bouquet and expensive-looking jewelry for my wife".

There were too few interactions with them to form meaningful connections, and by the time they were gone, I felt like I didn't really know most of them. They never interact with one another, either, and they are completely dependent on you to do even the most basic of things. One of them wanted to throw a party, and wanted me to ask other spirits what they wanted to eat, as if he couldn't do it himself. One was gifting me food every day, and at the same time was asking me to feed him. By the time they were gone, I was relieved that they weren't there anymore to bother me with their silly requests.

The first few spirits are probably the best (Deer, Frog, Porcupine), but most of the later ones are not as well written. Bull is just "generic cartoonish mob guy", Parrot is "dnd guy". Falcon wanted to build a museum and... That was it, that was his entire personality. I don't even know what the deal was with Dog, she just acted like a self-righteous and abusive teacher for a while, and then asked me to set sails to the place where souls go. They don't show any personality beyond their distinctive trait, feeling one dimensional, boring and, ultimately, fake. The fact that huge swathes of backstory for all spirits are hidden away in the artbook doesn't really help.

And despite you trying to help, none of them really comes to terms with what was holding them back. Most just... Give up and accept to disappear. Which kind of makes sense, considering the actual story of the game (which you can piece together as you play), but it is underwhelming and the exact opposite of what I was promised when I first booted it up, and kind of a bleak statement by the developers.

And that's the story. The gameplay is just a repetitive grindfest that stretches on twice as long as it should. At first it looks like a cozy, relaxing experience, but soon enough you find yourself working around the clock to grow crops, melt ore, feed herds, check on the spirits daily to give them food and keep them happy, and the situation grows worse and worse as the ship gets bigger, more tasks are added on top of the previous ones, and more spirits join you on your travels. It gets overwhelming.

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Ive seen people build crazy farms on that ship haha

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Still playing a lot of Lies of P recently while trying to go for 100%. I underestimated how long this'll take honestly, it seems like you need to do 3 separate playthroughs and be very careful about easily missable quests and records. Same shenanigans as dark souls really.

Still, it's a really fun game. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys the souls games.

5

Lies of P. Best soulslike game that isn't a fromsoftware game.

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I got super into Rimworld this last month and had a blast. I am also closing out my first playthrough of BG3, doing it with a friend so it's taking a bit longer. Picked up the new Cyberpunk DLC but haven't really had a chance to dig into it yet.

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I am currently playing hogwarts legacy on the ps5. Since I don't get much playing time during the week it's taking a long time but I am enjoying my hufflepuff character.

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Been replaying Talos Principle in anticipation of the sequel coming out next month. Been having a blast with the exception of a few puzzles with mines (if you've played it you know). I don't know if I'm going to 100% it again because I fucking hate those levels.

5

I played it through recently for the same reason.

There are some tricks to deal with mines - e.g. the "double jammer" dance will almost entirely de-risk a lot of the craziest levels.

It's the star puzzles I couldn't be bothered with...

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- Yeah that where I gave up this time too.
  
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Always on rimworld. If I'm not playing rimworld , I'm planning my next rimworld session.

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Still on Cyberpunk 2077. 54 hours in and I'm maybe halfway through act 2 and I haven't started with the DLC.

For some reason the gameplay loop of this game clicked with me. I love doing side missions and gigs and making my V a netrunner God.

Death Stranding, God of War Ragnarok and Cyberpunk 2077 reignited my love for gaming in the past 2 months. I was starting to get bored and burnt out on video games, but these three games are absolutely phenomenal and they sucked me back in.

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Age of empires 2. Bloody hell, this 22 year old game is getting another dlc. It's gona be a pain in the ass for the devs but the game is as balanced as ever and we'll enjoy it till the servers go down.

4

I went on a binge with that game recently. It is amazingly deep, I never got near all the possible ways to play. I was mostly enjoying getting my ass kicked by the computer in multiplayer.

Fun game. I'll probably get back to it eventually. Seems like it will be around forever.

ETA: There's a pretty large AOE2 community on Reddit (still? IDK?) and frequent vids on YT. I remember some very detailed analysis vids on YT when updates came out. And competitive is still a thing too.

1

Monster Hunter: Rise. My wife and I got two copies together. I've been a long time fan of MH since Tri on the wii. I played MH4U on the 2DS, and MHGU on the Switch. She first joined me in MH:World + Iceborne. Good game. It was fun enough she didn't cringe at the thought of playing MHR together.

So far I'm in LOVE with this game. This is very obviously from the old pre-World team. The in-game community feels alive again with old lobby systems brought back with new features. It's what I was secretly hoping for out of "Next Gen MonHun" when World was announced as that.

4

After finishing a playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3, I'm now on Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. Fun, but nowhere near as good as the original Tiny Tina DLC for BL2. Still, I'm 26 hours in and I'll definitely finish it. After that... maybe I'll go back and do a different run of BG3. I'm looking forward to getting back to CP2077 and picking up Phantom Liberty, but I'm going to wait for that to be on some sort of sale.

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I'm playing Myst for the first time, and I refuse to get help online.

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Good luck with that. It has some pretty difficult puzzles

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Project Zomboid.

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What killed you?!

Someone poured bleach in the water bottle.

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Currently have been playing a fair amout Stormworks: Build and Rescue and the new Space dlc, unfortunately there are a fair amount of bugs but it's still quite fun.

The other game I am playing a lot of is Deep Rock Galactic

3

I just finished playing Submachine: Legacy. I was really looking forward to it, and it surpassed my expectations. It is a remaster of the whole Submachine series of flash games, but a lot of stuff has been reworked and improved from the originals. There was actually a fairly significant amount of new content, so even though I was already familiar with the originals, I ended up spending the whole weekend playing it.

3

Still on NFS Heat and have been playing a bit of Kaze and the Wild Masks (or so), both games are enjoyable enough in their own right but won‘t make it on any of my top lists.

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Currently jumping around between Cyberpunk 2077, Armored Core 6, and Overwatch 2. Since beating Baldur's Gate 3 most of the games that I played pale in comparison.

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There's a indie sandbox fantasy game called The Bloodline that just came out and I've been having lots of fun messing around with that.

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I’m trying to play Returnal. It’s beautiful but I’m not sure the gameplay is ok for me. Next up is Cyberpunk DLC!

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Still on the Street Fighter 6 grind, just picked up another character, Luke. What a dumb stong tool set, placed into Diamond for ranked which is my highest by far(usually into mid plat).

And then finishing up Cyberpunk, DLC was awesome, and patch 2.0 has refreshed the game. Cleaning up the map and doing every quest I can, hopefully get this wrapped up this week as well and can move onto another game.

3

I’ve been playing The Outer Worlds for the first time since it released ages ago.

It is a great little roleplaying adventure game. I should do a stand alone post on it, in large part because it is almost always compared to Fallout New Vegas, which does it a disservice by setting up the wrong kinds of expectations.

I do enjoy playing a first person RPG that actually feels like a story rather than the increasingly bloated and unfocused Bethesda games which it is also often compared to.

3

Foxhole. New war starts today. Getting a few of my friends on and working on building vehicles and tanks for the war effort.

2

Just finished FFXVI finally. Loved it. I'd probably rank it somewhere in the middle of the Final Fantasy games I've played. The ending was a bit mundane, but the rest of the story was really well done and the combat got better and better as the game progressed.

Not sure what to play next, FFII, The Last of Us Part II, Returnal, Rogue Legacy 2. Might get back on Halo Infinite when they introduce Firefight finally, but I'm really not expecting much from that game.

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I'm finally getting to Death Stranding and I'm an hour in and absolutely intrigued by the story. But at the same time completely lost. I look forward to all the reveals of what the hell is going on.

Also weirdly feels like an anime, which isn't surprising knowing the mind behind it.

2

I got the Outriders dlc on sale, had forgotten how fun the game is.

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Just got back into Dofus Touch. I'm not far on either Touch, the PC version, or the sequel Wakfu, but they are at least fun enough for me to enjoy.

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I just started playing Exanima again after they released a big update. This game can take a little while to get used to, but it's totally worth it. The physics-based movement is unique and the combat is fun. The enemies acts more sentient than than those in other games, and the early-game ones sometimes choose not to attack if you don't act threatening toward them.

Read about the the features though. There's a reason that this game has my second longest total playing time on Steam.

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Just finished Sea of Stars. Really a beautiful classic style RPG. If you have any fond memories of games like Golden Sun, Chrono Trigger, or Breath of Fire, then it's definitely a game for you.

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I've upgraded my PC and discovered that I kind of love GR Breakpoint now. They added a metric shitton of improvements and I began to vibe with its sterile ikea futurism. Too bad the other island DLC isn't happening, but there's loads to do on the existing one still.

1

I tried the Go Mecha Ball demo at Steam Next Fest recently and been having a blast with it, even though it's a demo. The gameplay is just so good, looking forward to release. Also I checked out the publisher's steam page and found Evolings, it's a very cute roguelike where you collect evolings and fuse them together to make stronger ones, and fight bad guys through a semi-randomly generated set of routes.

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Rogue Tower - Steam description: Rogue Tower is a tower defense game with roguelike elements and a continuously expanding path which you can influence. Unlock, build, upgrade, expand, defend.

I've enjoyed unlocking all the cards and completing the 1-path (simpler) mode. Now I'm working on 2/3/4 path modes and finding them much more difficult. Uncovering levels of strategy I didn't know existed in this game after simpler mode. Surprisingly complex for a tower defense and very interesting.

Also, CS2. Still fun to shoot people in the head.

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I’m not sure how I feel about the revamped buy system in CS2, but I guess it does make it easier to add more alternate guns.

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- I am also uncertain but it does seem better than the old 2 layer/level system. I don't like limiting the choices but I do tend to only use a few weapons.
  
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Been enjoying cyberpunk but I keep going back to Xcom: Enemy Unkown

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I find XCOM difficult to go back to after playing XCOM 2, especially with the huge amount of easily installed XCOM 2 mods on the steam page.

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