What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

DarthJoJo wrote: Maybe avoid Final Fantasy VII. And VIII. And IX. And VI.

Haha. I haven’t played an FF game since X, but I did play VII, VIII, and IX when I was younger. I definitely don’t have the patience for them anymore, but I never liked VII. It’s one of the worst things to happen to gaming for how much it favors story over gameplay and how it impacted the industry. Suddenly game designers think they’re movie directors (I’m no fan of Kojima for similar reasons). VIII was trash and I know I’m less alone in that opinion, but I liked IX and X. I still like VI but not as much as I LOVE Chrono Trigger.

been playing the Eternal Castle which is a fake early DOS game remake. Putting aside the marketing this is pretty ace. It a side scrolling adventure game sort of like Another World with 3-4 colour pallet graphics in a post apocalyptic setting. Not too many jump puzzles too, mostly exploring and shooting with a few environmental puzzles.

I've been slowly making my way through Spiderman, which is beautiful and pretty fun. It's just kinda another open world checklist game with okay batmannish combat, which I'm pretty burned out on honestly. But swinging around the gorgeous world is still fun. They really made the swinging feel good.

I haven't finished it yet because I'm still entirely addicted to Black Ops 4. I gotta kick that habit so I can finish Spiderman and get into the games I got for Christmas! I got copies of Space Hulk Tactics and Assassin's Creed Odyssey waiting for me. Speaking of open world checklists lol. I didn't play Origins though and I hear they changed things up with that one for the better, and Odyssey continues on from there gameplay wise.

I've been playing The Messenger, which is a take on the NES Ninja Gaiden games. I'm loving it. If you have Amazon Prime, you can get it free right now as part of Twitch Prime. You will also get both Hotline Miami games, which means you will be getting one of my all-time favorite games, ever.

RDR and RDR2 are basically 2 games. The main quest and then all the in-between stuff you are describing. I love them both and couldn't be happier, but just as you knew from playing RDR 1 you'd hate it, I knew I'd love it. I still like the Mass Effect games more (another game with likely what you would call '"false sense of value"), but RDR2 has been nothing short of incredible to me. What are the problems that people seem to be upset with (I'm deaf to the video game community for the most part)?

Also, this happen which was awesome.

Josh Look wrote: The first RDR is the exact moment where I became acutely aware of the concept that most AAA games that are longer than 12 hours do not value my time. I don’t want to spend 25% of the playtime traveling from point A to point B. Those little side events they sprinkle throughout that distance that have no effect on anything and aren’t all that fun that are there only to give people that don’t know any better a false sense of value? Yeah, those can fuck off. That game, before indie games really took off and publishers started to be influenced by them, caused me to fall out of love with video games for a good long while. RDR2 was not going to fool me to begin with, but I have been paying attention to it and I won’t lie, I’ve taken some petty satisfaction in all its problems.

Yeah I like the Mass Effect games more too cuz even when you’re doing nothing, you’re still navigating a spaceship and exploring planets. I love it.

I just can’t get back into RDR2, I really need to force myself. It’s taking half my hard drive

Playing around a bit more with Godzilla on PS4. It's the weakest Godzilla game.from a game design perspective, yet from a Godzilla fans perspective, it nails a lot right. It's definitely a fan service game.

Speaking of which, I met a fellow Kaiju otaku a couple days ago that is alerted me to Too going ballistic with their protection of Godzilla, to the point of stuff being just released and offered for sale, only to be taken away since you can only buy a majority of licensed items only in Japan now.

Played some Abyss Odyssey. It's an adequate and very pretty game if you like old platforming titles such as Kadash. It needs some more refinement, but nothing that keeps me from completeing it.

Playing Diablo3 on hardcore mode now. I like this format, since I am forced to care if I want to progress. After two years of casual play, I am so close now to finally earning a platinum.

I hit a speed bump in Space Hulk Tactics on a certain mission whose difficulty needs a few play through before you can be successful. I'm liking the game a lot overall and still think I'd rather play this than the analog version, mostly due to how command points have changed due to card play. But there are a few interface bugs that annoy as far as visibility of action points spent and action points proposed for certain actions. They can be worked around via camera rotation, but just make the game session longer than should be otherwise necessary.

Haven't actually been playing, but for all you 40K fans, Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 is coming out this month. I didn't play the first, but heard a lot of positive stories. It's basically just like BFG, but Armada 2 expands the number of factions to 12 (including things like the Mechanicus and Exodites) and expands the fleet size limit, so you can play with more ships.

This guy: www.youtube.com/channel/UCg3BiSs8eBE9hA9EWYTgtAg/videos has been playing a lot of the beta (scroll down a couple weeks; lately he's all Dawn of Man) and the game looks both beautiful and fun. Might try it out when it releases to scratch my GW/Mechanicus itch.

There's soooo much strikes against it, but I finally enjoy Diablo 3.

It's a game when you're doing the same thing, all the time, from start to finish, with the rare excitement, and in essence a lottery. It's best when I'm not too serious about it, as it's a casual time waster.

The numbers get ridiculous. I'm pretty "early" in the game, but once have remarked casually to a friend I'm playing with: "My crit doesn't reach 300 million I think". His was 900 million. It's all about biggifying this number. Since guides are all around, you just need to keep playing.

How to get item X is a pretty common question, but with very few exception, the answer is "keep playing". And it's true. The game's generous (while being infuriating at times) enough that it doles out reward at just about the right time (at least for me).

But again, I'm playing pretty casually. It's my go to game on weekends when I have to play in short bursts.

I've been playing Fallout 76 on Xbox One and mostly enjoying it. I picked it up on Black Friday for $30, and so far it has been worth that much. I’ve been lucky in that I haven’t run into any jerks online or been hassled with pvp I don’t want.

The lack of npcs takes getting used to, and robots or computers give you most of the quests. It’s basically playing Fallout 4 on survival mode, but I’ve never had an issue with having enough food, water, and stimpaks. You have to be watchful because if a high level character was in.your location earlier, the level 10 mobs you might hav expected could be level 40+. The disconnects are an occasional problem, but most MMOs have that problem the first couple months.

Diablo 3 has it's yearly Darkening of Tristram event now active.

Go to act 1 in adventure mode, and go to the pentagram portal on the map. The portal to the labyrinth is in the ruins to the left.

Come for the nostalgia. Stay for the superior music.

I played through the whole labyrinth--it was cracking me up. It even turns movement into 8-fold lock. That was a good time. Blizzard catches so much hell, but they are dedicated fan servants, man.

"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

That said I picked up the Borderlands Handsome Jack collection during the Steam Winter sale. I had use or lose leave and time to burn (the kids played "Imperial Assault" while I supervised).

Borderlands 2 was great fun, but it appears it should be played with a small group of friends for best effect. However since I hate jumping puzzles I hated the Pre-Sequel which was chock full of them for no fucking reason.

I am a huge fan of Borderlands. But I do hope that the next game FINALLY does away with tasking you to jump some sort of chasm in a vehicle. It has never, ever, been fun. They have done this in all 3 games.

Played the 30 minute demo for Resident Evil 2. That was awesome! I never got to play that game when it came out, so I'm excited about playing it at some point in the future.

I'm over 5 hours into The Messenger, and there is a boss that is giving me absolute fits. It might put me off of the game.