What VIDEO GAME(s) have you been playing?

Oh I forgot Talos Principle! That game is great. I didn't finish it, but if you like Witness, you will like it. It possibly has more in common with Portal since it's a lot of box / environment manipulation.

I didn't like THE TALOS PRINCIPLE. Just wasn't enough for me to chew on. I think it was the physicality of the puzzles. You had to move shit around, which is clumsy if subtlety is required. Contrast to THE WITNESS, where you move around maybe to see how to solve the puzzle, but at then end it's just a maze.

PORTAL featured puzzles based on a cool, unintuitive idea, and had a clever narrative hook. TALOS PRINCIPLE, at least as much as I saw, was just shooting lasers at shit.

RETURN OF THE OBRA DINN comes to mind as a cool-as-hell puzzle game. And of course, FEZ.

My kids were long-obsessed with watching videos of Rayman Legends on YouTube, so when the Switch version went on sale I picked it up for them. I assumed they would more just enjoy me playing it, since they tend to like video games more for watching than anything else. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that they really enjoy it. So do I, for that matter.

It really nails the collect-a-thon format in 2D. Usually with 2D platformers I don't revisit levels much, but in this one makes it really fun to revisit stuff. I also love the non-linear nature, a little like Mario 64. No idea if this is how past Rayman games were, but it totally works for me. I think I like it more than Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, another Wii U game I didn't try until its Switch port.

If there's any mission you think there might be a juggernaut in when you're playing State of Decay 2, take extra ammo but critically do *not* take a shotgun. You're better off with even a 9mm pistol than even the most advanced room clearing shotgun.

For the past week, I've been playing Destiny on my PS4, (yes, I know it's old. Shut up. I got it when I bought the PS4 off my co-worker's boyfriend) and LOVING IT.

It has the Fragged Empire vibe, along with throwbacks to STALKER.

I bit the bullet and bought a year of PSN+ and the Taken King.

I'm already at level 39 as a Hunter without breaking a sweat. People say it's GRINDY. To me, I don't even notice it. Certain games become grindy when it stops being fun (i.e. Path of Exile in certain instances). When this stops being fun, I'll just play Monster Hunter World. I got it last October, and haven't really delved in it. Until such time....

*whisper* Take me with you.... I hate this job.

Gary Sax wrote: If there's any mission you think there might be a juggernaut in when you're playing State of Decay 2, take extra ammo but critically do *not* take a shotgun. You're better off with even a 9mm pistol than even the most advanced room clearing shotgun.

QFT.

Those things are bullet sponges, even with headshots.

I'm playing:

XCOM - at Normal/Ironman. I'm at the final mission. Normal is too easy. I might not even finish that last mission, because I've done it before at Normal.

Civ VI - beat it once in a Science victory. I was playing Netherlands and generating insane amounts of money. I never had a war with another empire. I've started another game and am playing it the same way, but I might start again and try for a Culture or Religion victory. I hate being behind the other players in tech, though.

Dragon Age: Origins - this toon is a much bigger prick than the last one I played, but it doesn't look like it's changing much in the game.

Terraforming Mars on Steam. That app doesn't crash anymore, but it still sucks. I keep finding new ways to lose.

en.boardgamearena.com - a lot of Stone Age and Puerto Rico. I do okay at Stone Age, less so at Puerto Rico.

Religious victories in civ are tedious micromanagement, unfortunately. I wish they made smarter choices with that system in its on the map elements.

Picked up Greedfall on sale. It seems to be a decent action RPG so far. The voice acting is acceptable. There are quite a few buttons in combat that require some memorization, but there is a tactical pause that can assist with getting your mind right in the midst of combat.


I decided to go a magic/thief route, but all paths are open to the player. Firearms are handled like spells in that they are mapped to a shortcut button rather than aimed. I don't mind that surprisingly. Lockpicking is handled completely by skill points instead of a minigame and is better for it.


I expect that the game will end up in the 7/10 range.

Rliyen wrote: For the past week, I've been playing Destiny on my PS4, (yes, I know it's old. Shut up. I got it when I bought the PS4 off my co-worker's boyfriend) and LOVING IT.

If I didn't play old games I wouldn't play anything at all. Speaking of which...

I started playing Bloodborne again last week, tackling the third chalice dungeon before Cainhurst Castle and Rom. I quit after the second boss in the dungeon, which was the Undead Giant. He's such a well-designed boss; he moves so slowly that you can be surprised by his reach, and the room you fight him in is just big enough to make you think you have more room than you do. I died so many times from being greedy with my attacks or not noticing that I'd backed up against the wall, but after several attempts (and several trips to Central Yarnham to farm Blood Vials, my biggest beef with this game) I beat him and headed to Cainhurst.

Other than a shitty environmental puzzle, Cainhurst wasn't too bad, and I killed the boss on my third attempt. I was probably over-leveled but I also wasn't afraid to go full aggro on him, which prevented him from attempting anything but physical attacks. Rom took me 4-5 tries and I went the impatient route, dodging in between her retinue of spiders to hammer her with my flaming electricity mace (yes, I put a fire gem on the Tonitrus).

And now I'm in the Nightmare Frontier, and, like the other major outdoor area, the Forbidden Woods, it sucks, but it's worse. It's labrynthine with poison swamps you can't run in and I still haven't found the boss so I looked up directions. Turns out there's a shortcut I missed where you have to run into a tombstone to make it fall over and form a ramp (AKA, do this one thing you would never think to do), so I've been going the long way the whole time. And the one time I got far along in the level, I explored a little area next to a bridge to retrieve an item only to trigger an unskippable cutscene where some guy pushed me into the swamp where I eventually died to a giant's thrown boulder while backtracking. I don't think going back will be too bad but first I have to build my Blood Vial and Antidote stores back up...

Just wait till you do the defiled chalice dungeon, the bane of my bloodborne existence. That fucking defiled fire dog and the defiled version of the Amgydala.

My only religious victory was with Russia, and it took like 150 turns. It was ludicrous.

My big issue with how religion is designed in Civ 6 is that it's not just something you'll focus on anyway. Even if you don't go for Domination, Science, or Culture you will still do a little bit of that stuff. But Religion isn't nearly as integrated into the rest of the game. It feels like a parallel game you usually don't have to play until you absolutely do.

I just beat Resident Evil 2 for the first time. I'll play again with Claire Redfield. I really like that game. It does some of the standard Resident Evil bullshit, but it's gorgeous and fun to play. The cut scenes look particularly great.

I started on standard difficulty but I died too much so it suggested I switch to "assisted". I took the advice and the game was still quite fun, no harm done.

I might have once long ago won a science victory. I tend to get to the point where I meet everyone and then go start a new game. I think I must like the exploration more and then get frustrated keeping all my cities straight with their goals...

I have only recently looked at going heavy religion and I have been a bit confused frankly. I would appreciate hearing a little about the micromanaging you describe.

I imagine it has to do with sending apostles back and forth to flip neighbors cities?

Regarding religious combat, it seems strange to me how apostles fight...and I cannot figure if other civs are indifferent to that or pissed.

So if you go heavy religion you're getting massive numbers of apostle points and pumping out footsoldiers of whomever by midgame. So you engage in this endless war of attrition discharging them on other people's cities or fighting them w/the more powerful religion unit. It only escalates to boring slog once you run into another civ that is going religion. Waves of apostles spreading out over the land going into cities back and forth over and over.