We’re coming up on the winter sale season so time to check in again on what video games you’re playing, recently played or otherwise want to talk about.
I stayed out of the Divinity: Original Sin and Wasteland 2 threads after the first page or so to avoid any future spoilers. Now that there’s been time for the bloom to come off the rose, are they still recommended buys?
I’ve been playing Fallout: New Vegas for the past week or two. My son had wanted to buy a new PS3 game and I told him that he could but he might better spend his money if he waited a month or so for the Christmas sales. Then I had a brainstorm and connected his enjoyment of Skyrim with his interest in watching me play Stalker and recommended that he get Fallout 3 ($9 new on Amazon) to tide himself over. Watching him play made ME want to play again but then I remembered I never played New Vegas.
I’d heard criticism of New Vegas for being less expansive than FO3 but I’m not really feeling it. There seems to be a lot more relative morality so my decisions seem to make more impact. I haven’t even gotten into the DLC content yet. Also – there’s actual living plants sometimes! Always bothered me that the eastern seaboard was indistinguishable from the landscapes of FO1 & 2 even hundreds of years after the war. Deathclaws evolved but not grass and shrubs?
Anyway, I also own Alien: Isolation but after the first 90 minutes of non-alien encountering wandering, I went back to FO:NV. That’s not to trash talk A:I; I fully believe I’ll enjoy it once I get into it but it just didn’t immediately hook me out of an already enjoyable time playing FO:NV.
Skyrim, which I’ve been playing pretty constantly for the past…many months. Since Christmas, maybe? All on the same character. Finished all the questlines except Dawnguard and the Dark Brotherhood. I’m spending a LOT of time on the Companions and Thieves Guild radiant quests (mostly Fishing jobs from Delvin, and hoping for rescue missions from Vilkas), as well as doing crafting in my Homestead. At level 139, with 4.5 million septims. Needless to say, I kind of love that game. >_>
Also been playing a bit of Dragon Age: Origins, after getting it from the Origin On the House thing. Story seems interesting so far, but I can’t say I’m a big fan of the combat system. Will probably like it better once I’ve got more powers and am doing more than just sitting back and watching it. I find my character’s helmet appearing and disappearing as she enters and exits cut scenes kind of hilarious.
Well, I’m trying to stay hip to current trends, so I just finished up my second playthrough of Chrono Cross and I just started the third Chapter of Final Fantasy Tactics. Playing with the job system in that game is actually a lot of fun!
Mostly the same games as the last time one of these got posted. The only game I’m playing right now that is “new to the rotation” is Ys: Origin, which is FREAKING EXCELLENT if you have any love for action RPGs at all. The level and boss design on this is first rate, and I’m actually really liking the female protagonist as well.
Otherwise, I am still playing SotS: The Pit, still playing Blazblue, and uh… once again playing Pac-man Championship Edition DX+ because I bought it on Steam.
I got my daughter a gaming computer for Xmas a year or so ago and purchased Skyrim, Fallout NV and Fallout 3 on it to get her started. Recently, she complained of technical issues (in this context, you understand, that means she had it loaded up with malware) marring her gaming experience. I cleaned the machine, upgraded and updated Windows and added a separate administrator account for myself. To test everything out, I played the vanilla version of Fallout 3 a bit. Then I decided to try out some mods. For the past couple weeks now, I’ve been obsessively playing 3 with the Martigen’s Mutant Mod, DC interiors, World of Pain, Fellout, and EVE mods installed. Also a couple minor mods that made assault rifles more accurate and added night vision goggles because it gets really fucking dark at night with Fellout running. Last night, I added an additional mod that is supposed to give NPC’s a more individualized appearance, but I didn’t encounter any humans (I’m in Vault 87) to see how it works yet. When I’m not doing this, I am at Fallout NV nexus looking over mods trying to decide which ones to add when I start that game.
Overall, fan made quests vary wildly in quality and the ones I tried before WOP were buggy messes that pretty well sucked. It appears though, that there are a precious few out there that blend seamlessly with the original games. Anybody who has additional quest mods for 3 or NV they can recommend, I’m all ears.
I’ve been playing FO:NV vanilla for my first time around although I might eventually do another run with mods and try something totally different. Big dumb melee/heavy brawler instead of my usual sneak/sniper intellectual (Speech, Science, etc) type.
I dunno about quest mods for NV, but I’ve been having a blast with Project Nevada and some of the environment mods—mainly making things darker. I liked getting scared in games like STALKER where some Bloodsucker would be running around, and you couldn’t see him.
I’ll check and see what exactly I’ve loaded. Nowhere near as much as a lot of people at the Nexus. The lowered HP, mod where food doesn’t give health anymore, and other tricks is making this playthrough a lot more entertaining, even at VH-Hardcore.
Edit: and after seeing Jophiel’s post, I just want to say that while I found that melee in NV had a steep learning curve, it’s really satisfying to just wade into fights with some overpowered bludgeon and bowl enemies aside like ten pins. The 9-Iron is hilarious to use. Especially if you normally play a sneaking snipe-bot like I do in every other FPS. Too bad they don’t have near as many low-IQ dialogue options as say FO2.
Angband 3.5 while I’m waiting for Legend of Grimrock II to launch. Was close to pre-ordering Borderlands the Pre-Sequel but the fact it doesn’t unlock until 17th here means I’ll be busy with LoG2 by then … and if I’m not buying it the instant it unlocks, I might as well wait for Steam’s eventual Winter Sale.
I’m winding down on Pokemon X/Y, and currently playing Puzzle Quest DS.
As soon as my sinus infection clears up (it’s made me kind of fuzzy) I want to return to Diablo 3. I’m not even that far in! But, I quit it in favor of Skyrim. Now all my friends are into Diablo 3, so I have to catch up.
It’s been an odd summer/early fall for me: I’ve been really busy, and on top of that there haven’t been many new releases that have gotten me excited. I’m pretty open to trying anything if I’m in the mood, but my go-to genres are strategy, RPGs, and the occasional Metroid-vania style platformed. I played around with Divinity: OS earlier this year, and liked it but didn’t love it. Nothing else has grabbed me recently.
As a result, I’ve been playing mostly old stuff when I’ve had the chance. Some DotA 2, because that will never go away. Diablo III for a while with the expansion and subsequent patches, but the shine is mostly off that at this point. I finally played through Rogue Legacy a month or two back, and that was awesome, but it’s not a terribly long lived experience.
Thinking about it, the only things I’ve played since the calendar turned to Officially Autumn are DotA 2 and a replay of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
I didn’t get to either of the prior Borderlands games until they hit 75%-off-on-Steam status, and I can’t imagine getting The Pre-Sequel any sooner than that. Looking at the other things coming out over the next few months, my hopes are largely pinned on Beyond Earth and Dragon Age: Inquisition… but those are also exactly the kinds of big-budget games that I feel like I’ve been most consistently disappointed by the past few years.
I’ve been playing way too much Firefall, which is basically Starsiege: Tribes with monsters thrown in. It’s a first person shooter where you jetpack around and kill shit; it’s a simplistic but entertaining MMO. The game launched a few months ago to very mediocre reviews – deservedly, in my opinion – but is nonetheless buttloads of fun for me just because it’s so different from most MMOs out there. It is pay to win in the extreme, but I have surprisingly come to really cherish that for the time-saver that it can be.
Also been playing 7 Days to Die, a minecraft clone with zombies and traps. It’s got a lot of potential right now, and crafting is a lot of fun, but it’s still too early to tell how it’ll turn out.
Got both Divinity: Original Sin and Wasteland 2, but neither managed to hook me for more than a few minutes. Guess I’m just not that into turn-based RPGs anymore. Was looking forward to the more action-oriented Shadow of Mordor, but seems to go too far in the other direction in terms of simplicity. It got glowing reviews, which led me to have even less faith in those reviewertisement sites.
I have so many games stacked up that need playing, as usual.
Recently, though, I have been playing Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn, and Diablo II, because an acquaintance of mine is having trouble clearing the game on Normal, so I decided to dust off the discs…
Mostly Wasteland 2 right now, but I’m also taking turns with Shadow of Mordor, Rome 2 Emperor Edition, Shadowrun the director’s cut, and Endless Legend.
There’s also Legend of Grimrock that I want to play, Dragon Age Inquisition, The evil within, the vanishing of Ethan Carter, Civ beyond Earth, Defense Grid 2…
What stands out to me at the Fallout NV and Fallout 3 Nexuses (Nexi?) is the numbers of mods devoted to crazily overpowered weapons and to nudity. Once a weapon is powerful enough to one-shot a Supermutant Overlord/Feral Ghoul Reaver/Giant Albino Radscorpion, I don’t see the attraction of it making it full auto or even higher damage into the bargain. As for the nudity, whatever floats yer boat, I guess. Since I’m not particularly interested in downloading a bunch of new clothes and armor for NPC’s, for me it would mainly amount to seeing a lot of nude corpses after I get done looting dead raiders. My prurient impulses are satisfied by reverse pickpocketing slave outfits and raider ordnance armor from The Pitt onto the female NPC’s in Megaton, Tenpenny Tower, and Rivet City.
That was my concern as well and why I was curious how people were enjoying them once you got past that initial “OMG I loved Fallout!” phase (or whatever your turn-based isometric RPG of choice is).
I noticed the same. Took a brief look for a textures mods (or mods) for both the game world and for character models/faces but yeah it’s a lot of boobs and super-phaser-extremes. I’m sure the good mods are out there and exist (DA:O is the same but also has excellent mods among the Morrigan-tits and mega-swords) but I didn’t put a lot of effort into it before bed. Any suggestions?
Planetside 2 - The continual updates have made it quite a good game, although there seams to be a fair bit of lag with the last patch. With repeated server merges, I suspect participation is dropping off and we can expect to se the development pace slow down, then again with it coming out on the playstation, maybe that will help
Kerbal Space Program, again regular updates and the sense of the game is coming into focus, but a great sandbox game as well.
The only game I’m playing right now that is “new to the rotation” is Ys: Origin, which is FREAKING EXCELLENT if you have any love for action RPGs at all. The level and boss design on this is first rate, and I’m actually really liking the female protagonist as well.