What have y’all been playing? I’ve been trying to wrap up Indiana Jones, then I think I’m going to do a replay of the machine games Wolfenstein games
Played a bit of Metro Exodus last night. One of the best games I’ve played in a while, even though the silence of your character is weird.
Actively, I’m on my second Baldur’s Gate 3 run. Recently made it to act 3 and I couldn’t be more excited about rearranging Gortash bones with my monk.
Also playing Disco Elysium and enjoying it so much. However, I feel it requires dedication or else you lose track of what you’ve got to do, which is a struggle for me.
Got two more games on the “paused” pile, but I won’t say which ones to avoid awakening the shame neurone
because the pause has lasted a whole year.The best way to play Disco is to just approach it as a good book. Explore as much as you can, exhaust dialogue options and submerge yourself in the world. Don’t be afraid to fail checks, don’t be afraid to pick wacky dialogue options.
The game is pure art and it’s the most meaningful, thought provoking and emotional experience I’ve had while playing any video game. Granted the themes really resonated with me personally.
Disco is easily one of my favourite gaming experiences. But I agree, it does require your attention. I’d say, give it the time you can, let it consume you and enjoy the ride
I played a bit of Granblue Fantasy Relink, I’m at the last chapter of the story. I still haven’t finished it, the story itself wasn’t particularly memorable, but the environments were gorgeous and the gameplay is fun. For the gameplay tho, I’m a bit worried about the endgame/postgame, as there wasn’t much variety in fights.
I’m still playing Fire Emblem Engage. The gameplay is overall really good, but I’m a bit confused that new units are much better than most of the previous ones. From the initial party I think I’ve kept using only Chloé and Jean, while the others had better replacements every few chapters. It’s not exactly a complaint but it feels a bit weird.
I would have tried continuing FFVII Rebirth, but I remembered I bought FFIX last sales and played that nonstop during the weekend.
I too am in the mood for Wolfenstein, I’m thinking of playing the second one.
I’ve started playing a game called Yaoling, which is a monster taming/collecting game. The battling system is much more like Yo-Kai Watch than Pokémon - you’re not really bossing them around, they kind of do their own thing once you’ve made preparations and started.
Absolutely spectacular gameplay so far, I’m really impressed. Love the artwork and monster designs. It’s in early access right now and it warns you to expect some bugs, but other than a lot of typos in the English translation I’ve only come across a couple minor issues. Official release planned for mid-July I think.
I definitely feel like I got an absolute steal of a deal. No idea when the sale ends, but I got all 3 games in the BioShock series, with DLC, and the 2 remasters for a little over $11USD before tax this weekend. I just finished my first time playing any of the games on PC. Had to install the original on my desktop with win10 because I couldn’t get the resolution right or brightness slider working on my steam deck when docked. Definitely prefer console controls because I was having a lot of trouble with mouse and keyboard controls, so I’m gonna have to switch to controller.
Other than that, I started playing Stellar Initiative this weekend as well and it’s was pretty difficult on the easiest difficulty while I was learning how to play and what works well with which enemies.
The original is one of my favourite games of all time. I love everything about it. The setting is phenomenal. The mix of plasmids and gunplay. 2 is also really good and being able to use gun and plasmid simultaneously was a great quality of life improvement.
2 is a very solid game and well worth playing, but it doesn’t have anything on the original in terms of story execution in my opinion. But that’s a tall order since Bioshock 1 is one of the best games of all time.
I’ve still yet to play Infinite, but it’s on my list for this year.
$11 is wild for all that!
Don’t know what’s going on at 2K, but I gladly took the offer and even got the bundle for a Steam friend I haven’t talked to for years.
Absolutely wild and I thought it was some sort of error at first considering right below it they were advertising just BioShock Infinite and their DLC pass thing for more than the whole bundle by a little less than $2.
Just finished Yakuza 0 and am psyched to start Yakuza Kiwami (which is a remake of the first Yakuza game). The action is soo good. Beating the shit out of enemies is already satisfying enough, but where it gets really good is when you build up something called a Heat meter as you’re fighting. Once it builds up, you get access to Heat Actions and they are nuts.
I mean just look at this madness (spoilers for move unlocks)!
The New Order was enjoyable vengence porn against Nazis, it’s a good time; maybe I need that again!
I’ve been playing the heck out of Harebrained Schemes’ BattleTech; I haven’t binge-played like this in a long time. It never feels fair; 2-1 odds is typical, but it’s always possible. Pretty satisfying to overcome unfair situations. Makes me feel smart and capable! Plus, jumpy stompy robots!
That was my thought too lol. Some good ol cathartic Nazi killing
After that you can go through the New Colossus, this time based in the US. Missions are also good fun.
Playing some more of DA: Veilguard. My wife is desperate for me to finish it so she can discuss the ending with me. I’m really enjoying how dynamic the combat is definitely the most fun from an action perspective on the series, less tactical but more technical with the parries and dodges. I’m digging the found family vibes too, it’s just nice to hang out with some good mutually supportive people sometimes rather than loads of conflict drama.
Just finished pillars of eternity, waiting for avowed to come out now.
You still got a week. You could squeeze in a quick Pillars 2 run.
I thought about it honestly. If I didn’t have to work I could do it lol
Most of my gaming time recently has been The Finals. Of all the new shooters released over the past couple of years, I feel The Finals has been the one that tried the most to be its own thing. And I think that is why its earned its own dedicated fan base. I normally try play a couple rounds a day and keep it casual.
There is also a [email protected] community. It would be cool to see a Lemmy Finals community grow.
Diablo 3 & 4
How are you liking 4? I really enjoyed 3 but haven’t picked up 4 yet. Does it stack up?
I was one of the beta testers and back then it was severely lacking. Right now D4 is at its best and I can see that it will only get better. This season is tied for one of the best seasons so far. I’ll be playing it for several hours today.
Been playing Arcanum, hopefully through to the end for the first time this time. Only begun it before, never got far. The game has a lot of charms, but also a lot of frustrations. Typical Troika, I guess. When it’s firing on all cylinders and the pieces of a quest puzzle happen to click into place it can be great, but oftentimes imbecilic design decisions get in the way of having fun. And it doesn’t help that combat is horrible and the animations are ugly, even for its time.
I’m towards the end of the game now so I’ll try to push through since I’d like to have finished it at least once. I do enjoy the world building, at least parts of it. It’s a little disappointing that the races are derivative sort of boilerplate fantasy Tolkienesque Dwarves and Elves and Halflings etc, but the Victorian era inspired steampunk setting is well executed and the tension and conflict between magic and technology feels fully fleshed out and very grounded in the game world. I also really appreciate the again very Victorian flavored racism towards Orcs and Half-Orcs, including an explicit reference to The Jewish Question.
One of my favourite RPGs from growing up. Such a cool game. I loved the variety of builds you can make. Have you tried playing a low INT character yet? Really entertaining. Totally new dialogue options. Honestly though the main thing I remember is that metal door sound effect they use for basically everything.
I don’t think low INT is for a first playthrough so I haven’t, but I know it’s an option. And given a lot of the people behind Fallout 1&2 went on to work for Troika I’d expect nothing less. I might check it out some day, the low INT run in the first two Fallouts are great. I rarely feel like I have time to replay games these days though, with the length of my backlog.
I started 1000xRESIST over the weekend and just can’t put it down, I should finish it in a few hours.
After that, I’ll likely pick up either Divinity: Original Sin 2 (I’m a couple of hours in) or the DLCs for Alan Wake 2 (since I finished the main game a few days ago), we’ll see.
I couldn’t put down Baldur’s Gate 3, again, but managed to beat Honor Mode for the first time. It felt like my characters were doing twice the damage, compared to my previous time in Act 3, so I just mopped the floor with pretty much all the bosses. There are a few more playthroughs I want to do, but I want to wait a bit. I’ve had like over 150 hours of BG3 this year already.
If anyone is interested, here are some more details of the run:
Honor Mode
Act 1 and 2 were three permanent party members and two that alternated. Fire Sorcerer (MC), Gloomstalker Assassin (Astarion), Life Cleric (Shadowheart) and switched between Berserker Thrower (Karlach) and Battle Master Fighter (Lae’zel).
Act 3 I shelved the Cleric and just went full DPS. For some quest fights I took the appropriate companion (Wyll for Ansur, Jaheira for Minsc), but for the House of Hope fight I went full caster comp and just stacked AoE spells on the choke point and hid, while the enemies slowly died.
I also found out that a thrower build with returning weapons doesn’t work for the very final fight against the Netherbrain, since the weapons just fall through the non-existent ground and never return. The rest of my party had more than enough damage, so it didn’t matter, but I should have kept some of the gazillion Daggers I got shortly before.
As for progression, Act 1 I got halfway to level 4 with very little combat. Disguising as a Drow and skipping combat with the Goblins is pretty easy. At level 4, more fights like the Gnolls, Paladins in the Tollhouse and starting in the Underdark. Then, at level 5 with a big power spike, the game gets pretty easy. Clearing out the rest of the map, and get to level 6 for the Mountain Pass.
In Act 2 I travelled with the Drider group to Moonrise, but joined the Harpers in the ambush. I made the Drider drop the lantern and picked it up in combat. The Harpers want the Lantern afterward in a cutscene, but you can just switch to another character to free the Pixie. So after like 10 minutes, the Shadow-Curse becomes a non-issue. The rest of the zone is pretty easy, I defeated the three bosses in the ruined town (toll keeper, doctor and dude in the tavern) just through dialogue. Then the Gauntlet of Shar. I like to open the door to Balthazar with Knock, so he has to fight himself, while I slink away, invisible. Before finishing the Gauntlet, I go back and clear out Moonrise Tower, so the Harpers don’t just get killed. Then just finish the Gauntlet and beat Ketheric. That fight was probably the hardest in the game. At the end of Act 2 I was halfway to level 11.
Then Act 3. Made my way to the Lower City very early and bought all the gear you can. First boss was Lorroakan, since he’s pretty easy, and Rolan survived this time. Through some easy side quests and fights, I made it to level 12, then started on the rest of the bosses. I had to kill Ansur early, since he ended my Honor Mode run previously. With Globes of Invulnerability, it’s a non-issue. The next ones were also no problem. Ethel 2, Cazador, Sarevok and Orin went down easily. Minsc wasn’t a problem, but the fights are kind of annoying, and you have to be careful at the end and don’t kill him. Raphael, another easy one, then the House of Grief. I messed up the Iron Throne again, since I didn’t speak with Gortash and/or Mizora enough and the Duke was dead. Everyone else survived, I think. The Steel Watch was surprisingly easy, it was only my second time doing it, but my party just shredded it. Gortash was the last boss, before the finale, and it was pretty sad, since he and his helpers just continually slipped on ice, while I sniped them from a distance.
At the end, my MC was turned into a mind flayer, and I went to kill the Brain. I quickly cleaned up the Dragon and Mind Flayers, before getting to the Brain itself. Inside it wasn’t a problem, but the reaction after your first attack is annoying, and I lost a lot of damage because of that.
In the epilogue, I started to talk to everyone, almost ate Jaheira’s brain, and then peaced out. I didn’t want to risk losing the run at the very last moment.
Then, I continued Final Fantasy VII Rebirth today. I completed a quest, won a Chocobo Race and fought a boss. Not much progress, but with BG3 done, maybe I can focus on this one.
