What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

Sunless Skies is coming out tomorrow. I'm tempted but I've been spending as little money as possible for a while, so I'll probably skip? I liked Sunless Seas a lot but it was way too punishing for me. The writing is very good though and the overall traveling vibe/pick up and deliver is fun.

Sevej wrote:

The game definitely started off weakly. I got mildly interesting, when at the normal difficulty I could be *anything*.

D3 might be a little too easy at Normal (or whatever you kids are calling it these days). There is a 'Hard' switch now, that I should probably turn on.

My nephews are seriously into Path of Exile. We played Terraforming Mars the other day, and the conversation during the game was mostly either, "What does this mean (points to card)," or "blah blah Flicker Strike blah blah." I played it a while back, and I might try it again, but the last time I tried it I lost patience with its big maps. They reminded me a lot of really big old-school MMORPG maps. "You've got to find that guy over there, somewhere on the eastern side of the whole zone. Good luck."

My son asked for his own Blizzard account just to accumulate his own riches in PS4 OVERWATCH. He made Platinum! Mostly with Lucio, Moira, and Brigitte. He works on the assumption that his teammates are better than he is, so he just focuses on keeping them alive as long as possible.

san il defanso wrote: I guess I'm in an isometric RPG kind of place, because I'm splitting time between Torchlight 2 when I feel like mowing down monsters, and Baldur's Gate when I feel like letting the monsters mow me down.

They are still doing successors to Baldur's Gate. There is a humble bundle right now with two isometric games at the $15 tier. www.humblebundle.com/games/caffeine-bund...ampaign=tile_index_6

I tried Tyranny for a bit but the combat is to samey to me and I hated "re-crafting"*** my spells everytime my character's lore ability went up a point.

That and War of Mine might be a big hit around here.

I find myself going back and back to Slay the Spire and Elder Scrolls Legends (they have a new story pack out). For StS at higher difficulty levels the only way to progress is to get a good sustained RNG to pull you through.

***Speaking of crafting it turned me massively off from finishing Fallout 4. It was different when I had copious free time. I'm okay with a game where the crafting skill tree is an option for specialization ala Arcanum (you can be melee, magic, or tinkerer) but as something you have to spend time with to unlock your gear's full potential, UGH!!

Sevej wrote: Then I hit 70, and got one key gear that suits my playstyle. Searched online about kanai cube, gambling, etc... then it becomes one of the must dumb fun game I've ever played.

The gear sets really can drastically change the gameplay style. I think that is why in the season mode they give you a full set for one character. That is probably my favorite mode. I am partial to whirlwind berserk, just get the right dual swords and you can non-stop whirlwind across the map. I just leave the right mouse button pressed down.

Diablo III is bae.

Seasons are the shiznit - I usually pick a class/build that I haven't given much love to and roll with the starter set to see how that goes - I thought turret dropping maruader demon hunter was my favorite thing ever, until 2 or 3 seasons back when Shadow was the Haedrig's set and I made the dagger throwing impale build which is now my second favorite build of all time. The next season I think I was a Charge Barb and this last season I played the best farming Wiizard I;ve ever played - Tal Rasha Exp Blast build with Wand o Boom - I was able to squeeze in a sage set with tal rasha and I finished the season with a surplus of 2500 death's breath.

Oh yeah - This season I'm playing Monk for the first time in forever. The Uliana starter is crazy fun - Exploding Palm for every third generator and Seven Sided Strike instantly pops EP. Hit Hit Hit Boom button! dash dash Hit Hit Hit Boom button! dash dash Hit Hit Hit Boom button! go back to get loot......

I was Monk last season, and they gave the Raiment set for that one. Blink across the screen, half the enemies explode, blink back, and the other half explode. Good times. I leveled a Gem of Ease to 25, stuck it on a sword and gave it to a fresh Barb and made it to Lvl 70 in two hours of goofing around.

Anyone dabbling in D3--you gotta figure how Kanai's Cube works. It is incredibly worth it. You can upgrade any L70 Rare into a Legendary, convert a set item from one thing to another (so awesome when you have three Pants but need the Chest Armor to get to 6), and of course, store and equip powers. Having Shrines effects last 10 minutes is insane. Or use Goldwrap to basically never die as long as gold is getting dropped. Changes things as much as completing a set does.

Before swapping from PS4 to Switch, I got the Templar Relic that makes him never die, had him wear an Arcstone ring while I used Kanai's Cube to have that effect as well. WE became the Fire Chains monsters in the dungeons.

mtagge wrote:

san il defanso wrote: I guess I'm in an isometric RPG kind of place, because I'm splitting time between Torchlight 2 when I feel like mowing down monsters, and Baldur's Gate when I feel like letting the monsters mow me down.

They are still doing successors to Baldur's Gate. There is a humble bundle right now with two isometric games at the $15 tier. www.humblebundle.com/games/caffeine-bund...ampaign=tile_index_6

I tried Tyranny for a bit but the combat is to samey to me and I hated "re-crafting"*** my spells everytime my character's lore ability went up a point.

That and War of Mine might be a big hit around here.

I find myself going back and back to Slay the Spire and Elder Scrolls Legends (they have a new story pack out). For StS at higher difficulty levels the only way to progress is to get a good sustained RNG to pull you through.

***Speaking of crafting it turned me massively off from finishing Fallout 4. It was different when I had copious free time. I'm okay with a game where the crafting skill tree is an option for specialization ala Arcanum (you can be melee, magic, or tinkerer) but as something you have to spend time with to unlock your gear's full potential, UGH!!

RPGs in general are still kind of a new genre for me. I tend to go really hard on a game for a week or two, then I very often run out of gas and don't pick it up for a long time. Just recently I got deep into Knights of the Old Republic and Baldur's Gate. I'm about halfway through both, and I'll eventually get done with them. But I also can easily talk myself out of playing them, because I can be a little impatient with story in video games. I tend to appreciate gamier aspects of design more than narrative and set characters. Probably the result of playing Nintendo almost exclusively during my formative years.

The other thing is that RPGs tend to be long, like 25-40 hours long. I've played a lot of games for well over that amount (I probably spent 50-60 hours on Breath of the Wild when it came out) but it's hard for narrative to hold my interest over that length of time. I fully suspect that Torchlight 2 will end up being the more-played game than any of these other RPGs, because when all is said and done it's better suited to mainlining for me.

And I gotta say, Torchlight 2 is absolutely what I want to be playing right now. My only complaint about the experience so far is the sheer amount of loot they throw at you becomes almost grindy as you churn through it looking for incremental DPS improvements. But other than that I'm all on board. I am an especially big fan of the vaguely Warcraft-ian visuals. That's one of my favorite graphic styles out there.

I think I mentioned this way in the back, but the last four or five months have been a time where I've also been going through the graphic adventure games from Lucasarts. I started with the first two Monkey Island games, and now I've made it through Indiana Jones & the Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle, and just about to the end of Sam & Max Hit the Road. I also have copies of Full Throttle and Grim Fandango sitting in my library waiting to get played.

I just posted all that stuff about narrative and characters not being the main draw for me generally, but those exact factors are what have kept me engrossed in these games. I've been asking myself why they work better for me than more modern iterations of this style, and I think it has something to do with the specificity of the characters. When the player can affect the outcomes, the characters are all a little more vaguely drawn to compensate. Most adventure games really have one way they can go, so the characters can be a little more fleshed out and distinct. Most of them have a very managable length too, about 5-10 hours.

I am sure there's a component of nostalgia to this as well. Playing these games reminds me of trying to suss out puzzles in Myst with my sister, and so there's a kind of early-90s innocence that appeals to me there.

I played through What Remains of Edith Finch in two sittings. It's a walking simulator / story game. Not much game to it, really. BUT.... it has several small sections, and each one has unique graphics and mechanics. It's really quite inventive.

The story was good and interesting throughout. It was (and perhaps still is) free on the Epic Games launcher.

I was trying to figure out what to do so returned to nuclear throne after not playing it for a while. I like it a lot better than enter the gungeon tbh but that's kind if a niche opinion, people love gungeon. The sound weapon sound effects in nuclear throne are amongst the best I've heard.

san il defanso wrote: I just posted all that stuff about narrative and characters not being the main draw for me generally, but those exact factors are what have kept me engrossed in these games. I've been asking myself why they work better for me than more modern iterations of this style, and I think it has something to do with the specificity of the characters. When the player can affect the outcomes, the characters are all a little more vaguely drawn to compensate. Most adventure games really have one way they can go, so the characters can be a little more fleshed out and distinct. Most of them have a very managable length too, about 5-10 hours.

I do think this is one of the factors. Guybrush is not very strictly defined and when he is, he's not defined in a way that would dictate the gameplay. In fact and I recall correctly, Monkey Island tends to give you three aesthethic options in dialogue: To be cocky, to be neutral and to be kind of a pushover. All three work because it doesn't affect the outcome and you can see Guybrush being all three at different points. The average post-90s adventure game protagonist is set in Asshole Guybrush mode all the time.

Hot take: Old adventure games worked because they were designed to be games first and be focused on puzzles. Newer games don't work because they focus on "story", which means they end up being bad movies with athropied gameplay. When you think about it, there's not much of a "story" to Monkey Island or Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, just a succession of puzzles in different locations.

I actually think they do well with story and character, but they do well in a way that is complementary to the medium. The characters are a little hastily drawn, because the gameplay has to be the thing. You are able to identify with the main characters enough to root for them and by extension yourself, and I think that's the perfect amount.

The later Lucasarts games that add voice acting really push this to the front. Day of the Tentacle especially utilized voice acting so well. The Monkey Island remasters (which generally look worse than the original versions) also have some outstanding voice acting.

I just finished Sam & Max Hit The Road, and next up is Full Throttle. Definitely enjoying this run on what has become a niche genre.

Gary Sax wrote: I was trying to figure out what to do so returned to nuclear throne after not playing it for a while. I like it a lot better than enter the gungeon tbh but that's kind if a niche opinion, people love gungeon. The sound weapon sound effects in nuclear throne are amongst the best I've heard.

I've played Nuclear Throne off and on since early-early access. Gungeon was fine, but NT is massively more satisfying. Better style, better characters, punchier combat, the best presentation of sounds and visuals, and somehow still shorter. Been playing Eyes forever.

Tomorrow is the release of Wargroove and I am VERY ready for it. I'm a huge Advance Wars fan and this looks to be Advance Wars with a Fire Emblem coat of paint. I'll take it. Probably gonna grab it on the Switch just so I have the ability to take it places even though I never take the Switch anywhere. Chucklefish has been publishing some amazing stuff and this is looking like it'll keep the trend going.