What Video Games Are You Playing Right Now?

[Fred the Barber]

I've only played Soul Blazer, which is indeed pretty amazing, and part of Illusion of Gaia, which was fascinating but not what I was looking for at the time. I haven't done much nostalgia gaming in a while because I have too much non-nostalgia gaming to do, but there is some constant nagging feeling that I'm missing part of my life as a result. I recently happened across Screw Attack live streaming EarthBound, which was quite a trip down memory lane. And I do mean a trip - I watched them first go through Moonside, and then the monkey cave where you have to trade presents to all the monkeys. What a beautifully bizarre game.

[Funyarinpa]

I will give Shin Megami Tensei 4 a little break and play The Swapper instead, I really like it so far. The atmosphere is great and the puzzle gimmick, the Swapper, is almost Portal tier (but they fail to build more game mechanics on it beyond a 2D version of excursion funnels from Portal 2 and some things that prevent you from placing clones, transferring your consciousness to clones or both). Amazing atmosphere. 

 

[Thunderbro]

I've been playing Trails in the Sky SC a lot during the past week. Currently on Chapter 4, making sure to do all the side quests as well. I'm finding some of the optional side bosses to be quite challenging in comparison to the first game. This series still has the best translation and dialogue of any jrpg game series I've ever played. 

[Getsuya]

7 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:

I've only played Soul Blazer, which is indeed pretty amazing, and part of Illusion of Gaia, which was fascinating but not what I was looking for at the time. I haven't done much nostalgia gaming in a while because I have too much non-nostalgia gaming to do, but there is some constant nagging feeling that I'm missing part of my life as a result. I recently happened across Screw Attack live streaming EarthBound, which was quite a trip down memory lane. And I do mean a trip - I watched them first go through Moonside, and then the monkey cave where you have to trade presents to all the monkeys. What a beautifully bizarre game.

I'm not a huge fan of Illusions of Gaia. I'd definitely recommend trying out Actraiser and Terranigma though. Both of those are (in my opinion) much more engaging and interesting than IoG.

[Jun Inoue]

4 hours ago, Thunderbro said:

I've been playing Trails in the Sky SC a lot during the past week. Currently on Chapter 4, making sure to do all the side quests as well. I'm finding some of the optional side bosses to be quite challenging in comparison to the first game. This series still has the best translation and dialogue of any jrpg game series I've ever played. 

Some quests only appear if you speak to certain NPCs, so be mindful of that, if you are going for the Trails-style super completion playthrough!

[Eclipsed]

I take back all the gameplay mechanic complaints about SAO: Hollow Fragment, updated my game to latest patch and now mobs 30 levels under you actually die in one combo like they're supposed to and overall battles are a lot more fluid

Or it could just be me finally getting the hang of it

[Fred the Barber]

Between a variety of external influences (most notably a girl I'm interested in talking about it passionately, but also @Tiagofvarela's OpenXcom playthrough thread), I decided I should try out XCOM 2.

That decision was made yesterday morning. Steam says I've played 14 hours so far.

It's very hard to put down.

I'm playing it on the lowest difficulty setting right now, because when I started I had absolutely no clue how any of the mechanics worked. I'm absolutely not reloading any saves, though; I live with my mistakes. And I've made dozens of mistakes in the time/resource management game alone; countless more in the main tactical gameplay. I am, thanks to the low difficulty level, still getting along fine (I think). I've lost a number of soldiers, of course, but only a couple missions ago I lost the very first soldier I picked up from the tutorial mission; my only Major, a Ranger, got wrecked in a single round on the first occasion I ran into those acid-spitting aliens. Naturally, those guys have been complete pushovers every time I've seen them since (though that my be in part because I focus-fire them so heavily...). Ugh. But it's fine. I've been rotating soldiers a fair bit of course (injuries don't give you much choice anyway), so although I wouldn't say I have a deep bench, it should be sufficient to get the job done. That said, I guess we'll find out if that's true, since the mission I just started and saved on, before I decided it was time to call it a night, will be my first mission labeled "Very Difficult"

At any rate, I'm thinking I'll finish up the playthrough on this difficulty to learn as much possible and then start right up with another one, one or two notches higher (definitely not crazy enough to go to the top difficulty level immediately).

[Eclipsed]

SAO: HF is an aight game.

Minus the supbar TL, plays like a singleplayer MMO where you can grind and quest to your heart's content and then have a pretty decent boss raid at the end of each Floor. There's also plenty of scenes and events between the characters. A good time soaker for b/w classes.

I naturally made my Kirito have the highest relationship points with Asuna, but by the Law of Harem he'll still chick magnet errbody wherever he goes

Spoiler

8 minutes to clear boss wtf


He finally did it bois


Who the FK is Sinno or w.e this broad's name?? From S2 anime or something?!


Just realized Liz has pink hair... yet I'm not really fond of her. This defies the laws of physics.


How Romantic. Btw, this is like, the ONLY chat segment that makes sense. Everything else is gibbernglish.


Should rename the game to Sword Art: HAREM

 

[Turnip Sensei]

7 hours ago, Eclipsed said:

SAO: HF is an aight game.

Minus the supbar TL, plays like a singleplayer MMO where you can grind and quest to your heart's content and then have a pretty decent boss raid at the end of each Floor. There's also plenty of scenes and events between the characters. A good time soaker for b/w classes.

I naturally made my Kirito have the highest relationship points with Asuna, but by the Law of Harem he'll still chick magnet errbody wherever he goes

  Reveal hidden contents

8 minutes to clear boss wtf


He finally did it bois


Who the FK is Sinno or w.e this broad's name?? From S2 anime or something?!


Just realized Liz has pink hair... yet I'm not really fond of her. This defies the laws of physics.


How Romantic. Btw, this is like, the ONLY chat segment that makes sense. Everything else is gibbernglish.


Should rename the game to Sword Art: HAREM

 

You should try the Hollow Area. I got bored of Aincrad after 5 or so floors, but I really liked the adventure through Hollow Area. Not only is the new girl, Philia, more interesting than the others and there's almost a proper story, but Hollow Area is also less linear, the areas are more varied and interesting, it doesn't have as much boring filler quests and it's actually pleasantly challenging. You can't just go spamming skills on bosses and mini-bosses, you actually have strategize a little, which makes the combat way more interesting.

I don't know if it gets any better on higher floors of Aincrad, but for me Hollow Area was the most worthwhile part of the game.   

[Kurisu-Chan]

Playing far cry 3, Binary domain, Total war. 

[Nayleen]

Finished this up in preparation for the third game:

Wondering what to play next / in the meantime.

[Kurisu-Chan]

Play total war.  

[Funyarinpa]

Just finished The Swapper. Great game with what might be the best center mechanic in a puzzle game since Portal (I shit you not I thought of it before I read Kotaku's review). Was only 1.5 bucks on NA PSN in a Flash Sale on Tuesday, don't think it's still on. 

Beautiful game. Plays damn good on Vita as well.

[niku]

Right now I'm playing Starcraft II and Street Fighter V. I've finally started not losing 100% of the games I get into, slowly getting closer to a 50% win-rate

[Eclipsed]

On 3/25/2016 at 0:56 AM, Turnip Sensei said:

You should try the Hollow Area. I got bored of Aincrad after 5 or so floors, but I really liked the adventure through Hollow Area. Not only is the new girl, Philia, more interesting than the others and there's almost a proper story, but Hollow Area is also less linear, the areas are more varied and interesting, it doesn't have as much boring filler quests and it's actually pleasantly challenging. You can't just go spamming skills on bosses and mini-bosses, you actually have strategize a little, which makes the combat way more interesting.

I don't know if it gets any better on higher floors of Aincrad, but for me Hollow Area was the most worthwhile part of the game.   

Yeah, I've been going back and forth. 

Hollow Area definitely has the better gameplay and 'main' storyline. Aincrad is basically for the fanservice events/CGs and barebones dating shenanigans with the heroines

I can't wait to unlock the CG gallery btw, there are some yummy ones  

[Funyarinpa]

@madvanced, I've been playing Terraria for a few hours every day with that Cody dude you introduced to us one day we were queuing in competitive CS. We're about to trigger Hardmode (all that's left is to quarantine the Corruption (or whatever that red counterpart is) and then we'll take on Wall of Flesh) and it's only been 5 or so hours in this map. It's crazy how quickly we're advancing, and I'd last played the 1.1 update- the game now seems a wee bit too easy with all the new midgame and early game equipment, but I do enjoy it for the most part. The boss in the new Corruption counterpart biome is great. This is my first time playing Terraria multiplayer, and I am really enjoying the experience.

[Fred the Barber]

Just finished my Rookie playthrough of XCOM 2.

Spoiler

The last mission was vastly harder than everything before

But I actually didn't have any more lost soldiers after the early phases, before I understood how anything worked. I'm a little bit tired of it, so I probably actually won't go back and start up another playthrough to start getting my butt kicked by a higher difficulty just yet. I'm not actually sure what I'll pick up next, but Tales of Zestiria has been waiting a long time, so that's pretty likely.

[Darklord Rooke]

5 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:

but Tales of Zestiria has been waiting a long time, so that's pretty likely.

Tell us how bad it is. I'm just curious. I know it's bad, but I don't have a good impression of 'how bad'  

[Deep Blue]

Playing thief 2014, pretty good so far that is if your pc can run i lol my only problem so far are the cutscenes they are hideous and the voice acting oh boy... the game looks better in game that those pre-render cutscenes so I don't understand why they used them in the first place O.o

[madvanced]

21 hours ago, Funyarinpa said:

@madvanced, I've been playing Terraria for a few hours every day with that Cody dude you introduced to us one day we were queuing in competitive CS. We're about to trigger Hardmode (all that's left is to quarantine the Corruption (or whatever that red counterpart is) and then we'll take on Wall of Flesh) and it's only been 5 or so hours in this map. It's crazy how quickly we're advancing, and I'd last played the 1.1 update- the game now seems a wee bit too easy with all the new midgame and early game equipment, but I do enjoy it for the most part. The boss in the new Corruption counterpart biome is great. This is my first time playing Terraria multiplayer, and I am really enjoying the experience.

did cody make you do this peer pressure post? (´・ω・`)

[Funyarinpa]

2 hours ago, madvanced said:

did cody make you do this peer pressure post? (´・ω・`)

no lol

[Mr Poltroon]

So I've been thinking: "I've got a lot of free time to burn (EDIT: For a couple of days), and I don't quite know what to do..."
Then suddenly, an epiphany: "Civilization V"

Edited March 30, 2016 by Tiagofvarela

[Makudomi]

Not doing anything particularly novel or exciting with the game this time around, but sometimes it's nice just to sit down and replay an old favourite.

Afterwards I think I am going to do a run of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door where I reduce Mario's health and defenses to infinitesimally low levels in exchange for godlike offenses. I'm curious how that will affect the difficulty level.

[Kawasumi]

wups, "accidentally" bought the witcher 3 on sale, silly me  

[Funyarinpa]

7 hours ago, Makudomi said:

Not doing anything particularly novel or exciting with the game this time around, but sometimes it's nice just to sit down and replay an old favourite.

Afterwards I think I am going to do a run of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door where I reduce Mario's health and defenses to infinitesimally low levels in exchange for godlike offenses. I'm curious how that will affect the difficulty level.

Tried to emulate SM64 once, didn't like it much but it somehow does have that nostalgic feeling (saying this as someone who was not even conceived while this game was lined up on store shelves).

1 hour ago, Kawasumi said:

wups, "accidentally" bought the witcher 3 on sale, silly me  

Now "accidentally" realize that it just won't run properly on your PC.

 

edit:

On Terraria, we're up to having defeated the three initial Hardmode bosses. There's apparently three more and then one "mega" boss. Love the idea, and I'm about to move into loot and bosses completely new to me, which is very exciting. That said, when you have great loot (and your co-op partner does all the grinding when you're offline) as well as an equally powerful partner the game becomes easy as shit. I remember that the first time I went through the mechanical Hard Mode bosses it took me several tries to take down The Destroyer, and here it was easy as shit. I ended up farming Eye of Cthulthu's lol, actually we can now take down two Twins (as in, 4 eyes total) in one night. 

The new stuff they added such as alternative ores and whatnot are not counteracted by new challenges and instead you have a lot of new stuff to carry you through early game. I hate the idea of a map, and had it not been necessary to use it to teleport between players I would have never used it. Yo-yos especially are OP as SHIT.

The annoying thing, though, is that practically all magic weapons are bound to looting and not crafting and thus are STILL limited to at least midgame (Water Bolt from the Dungeon, or Demon Scythe from the underworld). How difficult would it be to create craftable wands (preferably from some new collectible loot) that send magic projectiles?!